L4D: Origins
by Lardcake212
Summary: This is the story of four unfortunate people that survived the end of the world as we know it - how they met, how they survived, and how they fought in the face of certain death. Rewritten from the original version on L4D forums.
1. Disturbing Behavior

_A/N: Hello reader. This is the official rewrite of my L4D fanfic "L4D: Origins". The first version was posted on the forums at , and in general, it was well acclaimed - though towards the end, I was dissatisfied with my first draft, and thus, I began to rewrite my story from the ground up. I personally believe that I have done a much better job on this rewrite than I did on my first attempt. As such, I consider this rewrite (on ) to be the official canon of the L4D world depicted in my fanfic. If you decide to read the first version, it is not the same. If not, then here is the canon version of "L4D: Origins" for your enjoyment or hate or whatnot. Please read and review, offer constructive advice, make me sandwiches, whatever._

_I'm sure Valve understands that I don't claim to own any parts of the L4D intellectual properties. But, just in case, I'll put it in now: I do not own the rights to any of the characters, infected or other Valve created intellectual properties. When I say "canon" I mean it in the context of this fan fiction - that is, my (the author's) interpretation of how "L4D: Origins" goes. That means the first version I wrote is not official canon. But, I own whatever rights there are to both versions. Any original characters or settings are my own creation and are thus my intellectual property. Also, I have taken my own creative liberties in writing the story. Although most of the major parts remain the same as portrayed in the game, a few things have been changed to either make things more realistic or interesting. You may read, please don't take without my permission. So no including my OC's in your fanfic without my approval. And don't be afraid to ask, I probably don't mind anyway._

_Enjoy.  
_

_-Lardcake212  
_

**01: Disturbing Behavior**

It's one thing to fight a human enemy. Humans can think and rationalize. They have the ability to adapt – moreover, humans fight for a cause, something that they believe is right. Throughout history, men motivated by a cause have fought other men motivated by a different or opposite cause. It is fighting for a cause that differentiates them from animals.

Animals don't fight for a cause. They have not yet ascended into that level of deep thinking. True, some animals like dolphins and chimpanzees have been observed displaying remarkably complex behavior. Yet on the whole, animals fight for survival. In the cruel world of nature, resources are scarce. Conflict rages daily – fought by tooth and claw. There is only enough food, water, and habitable space, to support a limited number of individuals in a species. The math is simple and brutal: some will live, many will die. This brutality ensures that the fittest survive and reproduce.

Something in our past triggered the ability to harness and control the power of the environment. Suddenly, fire was not a deadly enemy, but a useful tool that allowed man to survive harsher conditions than ever before. The eating of meat saw an increase of brain matter from the sheer amount of protein intake, allowing ever more complex hunting strategies to be developed. Today, we have grown so accustomed to taming the environment to our needs that we no longer have to fight for resources. Instead, we fight for religion, political ideals and values.

Then, on a cold November morning, something changed. The first case of "super rabies" was recorded in China. A young boy had returned from a fishing trip with his father. Nothing seemed to be wrong, according to reports, until he developed a high fever and started exhibiting some rather disturbing behavior. The boy stopped speaking after a while and began spewing out nonsensical gibberish. He had to be tied down to his bed because he was so aggressive. Doctors from all over China inspected him, and found the cause – it was a virus. However, it was definitely not rabies. The doctors had discovered something new. No one could say how the boy had gotten the disease. It was not an animal bite, because no marks were found on his body. Perhaps it was a waterborne illness, but the doctors tested the water of the river where the boy and his father had gone fishing; they found nothing. Some even suspected a biological weapon.

No one ever found any answers because within a few days, the infection spread around China and the rest of Asia like wildfire. The People's Liberation Army had to be mobilized and soon, broadcasts and communications from China were cut off entirely. We don't know if the virus had overrun the country, or if the government was just covering up what was going on there.

Just in case, America blockaded her shores, but it was already too late. Cases popped up within our own borders. The first of the infections started on the West Coast – probably by illegal Asian immigrants sneaking in to avoid the devastation in China. The US-Mexico border was well fortified, but people still were able to find ways in. Infections sprang up in the southwestern United States and simultaneously, more cases were recorded in Florida. The sheer speed at which the virus propagates is astounding. Only two days after first infection, a state of emergency for the entire country was declared.

The virus known as "super rabies", as said before, has no resemblance to rabies. In fact, it is more like the common cold in its virulence. It is fully airborne, waterborne and of course, spreads easily through bites and scratches. The incubation period of super rabies is difficult to say – but it has to be quick. The time between the first symptoms (regular flu symptoms) and transformation to rabid killer is inconsistent. For some, it was days. For others, it was only hours. And occasionally, some people would simply transform spontaneously.

The infected people that have turned are, to say the least, extremely vicious. At best, they will struggle against their restraints, even as they rub the skin off their wrists. At worst, they'll be sprinting around and attacking everything in sight. It is easy to tell the difference between an uninfected human and an infected one. Generally speaking, the infected human's skin has turned gray and their eyes have turned red. They are also typically attacking something, which often turns out to be an uninfected human. The sheer brutality by these creatures is unmatched. Individually, they are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. In a group, they will literally tear a struggling victim limb from limb.

They are completely merciless and endlessly brutal. This virus has more or less produced zombies, at least in the modern sense of fast, viral zombie. They are not invincible, of course, but still take more punishment than a regular human being. The only thing we do know is that they display no sense of self preservation. In the end, they'll have to die.

Until that day comes, we are at their mercy.


	2. Unknown Soldier

**02: Unknown Soldier**

The city of Fairfield is a rather large one with bustling traffic and lots of noise. Twenty four hours a day, the city throbs with sound – the sounds of cars, police sirens, construction sites and more. It is not an ideal place to raise a family, because good schools (with the exception of Fairfield University near the center of the city) are difficult to come by. People don't come to Fairfield to raise families, they come here to live and die alone.

So far, that had been working quite well for Master Sergeant Bill Overbeck – United States Army, Green Berets, Vietnam veteran. Fairfield, Pennsylvania had proven to be a good place for him to move. He wanted to find better prospects and to escape from his previous years of menial jobs and alcoholism. However, he quickly found out that the modern economy was not friendly to people looking for jobs, and even less so to old military veterans.

He was a proud soldier, having enlisted the day he turned 18. His first tour was relatively uneventful – most of the time, he worked on repairing radio equipment. But Bill wasn't content with being a radio mechanic. He quickly volunteered to go to Special Forces school, where he excelled. Thereafter he was deployed once again to Vietnam. This time, he was a Green Beret communications sergeant. Bill was just as much a master and professional with radio equipment as he was with weapons and combat. He was fluent in three foreign languages. Along with the rest of his twelve man squad, he conducted countless top secret missions in Vietnam.

Bill had plans to go to officer school after his second tour. During his last week, however, a grenade landed in the midst of his squad. The man in front of him caught the worst of the shrapnel, but a large amount of it entered his knee, nearly severing the lower half of his left leg. Suddenly, Bill was no longer fit to ever serve in a military unit again. No amount of commendations or medals could change the fact that he would have to leave, even if it was an honorable discharge.

He was 63 now, though still just as muscular and formidable as he had been decades ago. Bill stood just shy of six feet, two inches tall. He had a weathered face that seemed to perpetually glare – perhaps it was his eyes, cold and blue. His beard and his hair were both stark white, and certainly didn't fall within Army standards, for they were scraggly and unkempt. Certainly, an unprofessional look.

Maybe that was why he continued to stay unemployed. Three weeks in this damn city and he still had not found a job. He wasn't necessarily short on money – Bill was easily satisfied living in very meager conditions and surviving on veteran's benefits. However, without the Army, his life no longer seemed to have a purpose. Bill was the type of person who needed structure and a chain of command. But no job provided the same amount of satisfaction of the Army, and as such, Bill drifted from city to city.

He was sitting in a moth eaten arm chair in a moth eaten living room, watching the news on a dusty television set. There had been reports of a virus that had been sweeping through the land. Bill didn't particularly care, but even if he changed the channel, the same report continued to come in. Countless numbers infected, a state of emergency declared by the president, the National Guard being mobilized…

He tried watching other things besides the news, but those things were boring and stupid. TV was truly a wasteland nowadays, and for an unemployed veteran with nothing better to do, that spelled for trouble. Bill irritably shut off the television and stood up to his full height. His knee was stiff again, and so was his back. Ignoring the tension, he walked over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat. There was a single can of beer and a loaf of bread.

"Goddamn it," he muttered to himself. Bill went to his bedroom and changed clothes. He now wore a stained yellow T-shirt that had once been white, a tattered green Army jacket, combat boots and tan trousers. He rarely wore much else – but in his closet, he still had his old military uniforms, ranging from battle uniforms to his formal Class A's.

One item he always wore was the coveted Green Beret, the distinctive mark of US Army soldiers that had qualified for the Special Forces tab. Bill particularly treasured this item – it was a symbol of excellence among soldiers. But more importantly, it ensured that he remained true to his military background. Unlike the rest of his clothes, Bill kept the beret in peak condition. He would often spend huge swathes of time cleaning and adjusting its shape. Years after it had been issued, it still looked brand new.

Bill found some cash and walked out the door of his apartment, a run down place in a poor neighborhood. Although it was in the middle of the day, no one was walking outside. Everyone was afraid of the virus, and those that did walk outside wore face masks. To Bill, this reaction was silly and unnecessary. The virus had not spread as far north as Pennsylvania thus far.

Even so, as he made his way to a busier street, the entire area was being heavily monitored. Government notices had been posted everywhere – on street lamps, bus stops, bathroom stalls and more. People were urged to use protective gear at all times, though Bill didn't bother with that. Although a senior citizen, he was still healthy and hadn't been seriously ill in years. Bill made sure to take care of himself at all times. If he ever did get sick, the Army's health insurance benefits would cover him. He had no family to speak of, and no children – only a couple of unsuccessful marriages. As far as he was concerned, the Army was his family.

Yet as he walked down the street towards the grocery store, he eyed the National Guardsmen standing in the streets with disdain. This was a new generation of soldiers and in his opinion, a pussy generation. In Bill's time, soldiers had only their skills and each other to rely on. Nowadays, soldiers let computers do all the work. Bill shifted his eyes towards one of them – a young private by the name of Burns. Private Burns was armed with a modern M4A1 assault rifle. In lieu of a carry handle with a rear sight, Burns was using an EO Tech holographic weapon sight. Instead of aligning the sights and controlling his breathing, Private Burns only needed to place the targeting reticule projected in the EO Tech display panel upon a target and shoot.

Bill snorted as he walked by Private Burns. What happened if the fancy electronic sight failed? Obviously, he would be doomed. And his uniform! Digital camouflage? _What_ was the Army thinking?

He passed more and more National Guardsmen on his way to the store – they all looked the same, wearing gas masks and other protective equipment. This new breed of soldier was not the same as the old breed. Nowhere near as competent or brave. But, he had arrived at the store – a Walmart superstore. Bill loved buying things from Walmart, for things were dirt cheap. He didn't care about the store's alleged bad business practices. As far as he was concerned, the liberal hippies who complained could go buy their organic tofu elsewhere.

Bill walked into the store and was quickly greeted by, to his surprise, a man almost as old as he was.

"Welcome to Walmart," said the greeter, his voice muffled by a face mask. "Would you like a cart?"

"No, just a basket for me," said Bill. The old greeter gave him one.

"Have a pleasant day, and thank you for shopping at Walmart," said the greeter. Bill entered the store and wondered if he should simply work at Walmart. It seemed that they had no qualms hiring senior citizens, and surely, a store of this size would need more workers. He decided he would stop at customer service after finishing his shopping.

Bill made a mental list of what he would need: eggs, canned goods, and beer, among other things. Especially the beer, that was particularly important for passing the time. He looked around at the huge aisles and after a minute of thought, decided to go to the dairy section first.

Despite the ravaging effects of the virus, life continued as normal. In the middle of the day it was mostly mothers that were shopping for groceries. Bill suddenly realized how stupid he must look, an angry looking old man with crappy clothes and a meticulously cleaned green beret, shopping in a Walmart. It was fortunate that his jacket clearly stated "US ARMY." Perhaps that would reduce the strange looks – people would surely think, "Oh, that poor veteran, abandoned by his country!"

This time, though, no one seemed to be paying attention to him. The mothers in the Walmart were shopping in pairs, gossiping about the latest news on the viral outbreak. Bill loaded a carton of eggs into his basket and moved on, uninterested in such boring banter.

Within a few minutes, Bill had the supplies he needed and began walking towards a checkout counter. There was only one in service today, and a long queue had formed – mostly women, either gossiping or reading the magazines on the racks next to the counter. A young child sat in a shopping cart just in front of him, loudly shouting random childish stupidity. Bill quietly grunted his disapproval. This was why he chose not to have kids – children were loud and annoying.

"Be quiet, Jeremy," said a young woman sternly. She looked to be in her early twenties – to early to have a child, in Bill's view. The small amount of groceries in her cart indicated she was probably a single parent. In these days, single parents were becoming more and more common. The long accepted traditional family structure was seemingly gone.

"Long line, huh?" Bill snapped out of his thoughts and noticed that the young woman was speaking to him. She was quite attractive – blue eyes, dark hair and a fair complexion. Although considerably shorter than Bill, she managed to maintain an air of confidence and professionalism. By now her frame had shed all the extra pounds of pregnancy and childbirth. Her figure was lithe and agile looking.

"Yes, quite so," said Bill. His voice was unwavering and displayed absolutely no signs of surprise – these days, nothing could surprise him. Green Berets were trained to think quickly on the spot. "You'd think, on a Wednesday afternoon, they'd have at least another counter open."

"I was just thinking that," replied the woman. "My name's Angela, by the way."

"I'm Bill," said Bill. "So, Angela, do you always make a habit of talking to strangers in grocery lines?" Angela seemed to find this question funny. She laughed slightly.

"Well, I happened to notice your jacket, and it says US Army."

"Oh? What about the Army?"

"My husband is in the Army. He's deployed over in Afghanistan right now."

_So she's not a single parent after all_. Bill chastised himself for making assumptions. Most likely, she was simply having hard time with her husband's absence. Seeing any military serviceman, active duty or not, would bring back the pains of being alone.

"Really? Which unit?"

"1st Cavalry Division. He's a combat engineer."

"1st Cavalry? That was my unit back in Nam!" Bill exclaimed, genuinely interested now.

"Whoa," said Angela, smiling broadly. "Small world, huh?"

"I guess it is," said Bill. "How old's your kid?"

"Jeremy? He'll turn two next week." Suddenly, Angela looked sad. "My husband was supposed to come back just a few days ago, but his tour was extended by a few months."

"Oh," said Bill. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Sorry if I'm just dumping my problems on you," said Angela.

"Oh, don't worry. I know exactly what you're going through. And it's important for someone like you to stay strong and take care of the kid." Bill found it strange he was suddenly so friendly. He always held a soft spot for military veterans and their loved ones, but rarely did he actually talk with them.

"Thanks," said Angela. She was about to say something else, but was interrupted by a sudden commotion. Both of them looked towards the front of the line where a woman had dropped several glass containers. People were backing away from the mess, although a few stayed and offered to help clean up. The woman in the front of the line was standing stock still, looking somewhat dazed.

"Don't worry about that, ma'am, we'll get someone to clean this up while you go get whatever you dropped," said the cashier, sounding genuinely concerned for customer well being. He picked up a phone next to his cash register and called for a cleanup crew. Throughout this, however, the woman who had dropped the jars was still standing perfectly still. Her mouth hung slightly open; a drop of spittle dribbled down her chin.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?" asked the cashier. The woman still did not respond. Frowning slightly, the cashier waved a hand in front of her face – but the woman's eyes did not follow.

"Oh damn, I think she might be having a seizure," said Bill. "Angela, can you call 911?" Bill stepped forward towards the woman while Angela whipped out her cell phone and dialed the number. A second later, she faced Bill.

"All the circuits are busy," she said fearfully. "What do we do now?"

The woman who had been standing still a second earlier suddenly began shaking her head violently, as if trying to clear it. A few of the customers backed away in fright, except for Bill, who placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. In response to the touch, she whipped her head and faced him.

"Whoa!" Bill was shocked to see that the irises of the woman's eyes had suddenly turned blood red. Almost immediately, Bill backed away. He had paid enough attention to the news to understand that red eyes meant an infection by super rabies.

The woman opened her mouth and let loose a vocalization that seemed inhuman, an animalistic roar that could only be produced by a predator. A second later she stopped roaring and gnashed her teeth together. Something fell out of her mouth – to Bill's horror, it was the tip of the woman's tongue. A spurt of blood poured out of her mouth, dribbling down her chin and neck.

"Oh Jesus!" shouted the cashier frightfully. His exclamation drew the attention of the infected woman, who lashed out with an angry fist, clocking the cashier square on the nose. There was a snapping noise as it broke, sending a torrent of blood flowing from his nostrils. The cashier cried out in pain and surprise and frantically ran away. "She hit be, she _hit_ be on the doze!"

The infected woman refocused her attention on the crowd behind her, and lunged forward, swinging her arms dangerously. Her strength seemed colossal. Bill stepped forward to restrain her, but he was met with a punch to his stomach. He stumbled backwards, surprised by the sheer force at which he was hit. Bill had been winded from the assault – but now, he was angry.

The infected woman focused on Angela, who was cradling her child and staring back at her, white with fear.

"Angela, back away!" Bill gasped as he regained his breath.

It was too late – the infected woman dashed forward with inhuman speed. Angela screamed and turned to protect her baby, just in time. The woman collided with her at full force. Angela flew backwards and in the process, her grip on her child loosened. Another shopper stepped forward and caught the child, who had begun crying loudly.

Angela struggled to her feet, but the infected woman advanced and kicked her in the side. She yelped in pain and fell flat to the floor.

"Get off of her!" Bill growled, grabbing the infected woman. But even his strength was no match for her – she simply elbowed him off and began viciously assaulting Angela. Bill was once again winded by the attack to his ribcage.

"Help me, help me!" Angela screamed, terrified. Other shoppers were attempting to dial 911 and a few even attempted to pull the relentless infected woman away, but to no avail. Bill could see Angela struggling to fend off her attacker, but even now, Angela's movements were getting weaker.

The infected woman slammed her face into Angela's neck and then, to everyone's horror, bit down hard. Angela was able to scream once more, but her voice quickly died and was replaced by a wet choking noise. A pool of blood formed rapidly under her body.

Bill rushed forward, this time with a small knife in his hand. He always kept a small knife for general use, be it adjusting screws, cutting boxes or, in this case, fending off attackers. He drew upon his training and killer instincts as a Green Beret. The knife went into the throat of the attacking woman, instantly severing her trachea and arteries. Bill roughly forced the attacking woman off of Angela's feebly struggling form.

One look was all he needed to know that Angela had no chance. Her throat had been torn open by the attacker's teeth. Angela's eyes were glazed over and unfocused. The least Bill could do was grip her hand tightly, providing whatever comfort he could as the life slowly bled out of Angela. It took only a minute – her pulse stopped and Angela's grip on Bill's hand went limp. Bill used two fingers to close her eyes. He was certainly no stranger to death, having personally taken many lives himself as well as dealt with the deaths of friends. But no amount of mental conditioning or training could help one deal with the death of an innocent civilian.

By now, the entire store was in pandemonium – several policemen had arrived along with several National Guard soldiers, but they were quickly descended upon by a horde of infected. It was as if the infection had appeared spontaneously. Bill was in disbelief as he left the store, stopping to grab an M4A1 rifle from a soldier's corpse.

The streets were utter chaos as well – cars had been crashed or even flipped over, bodies lay in the streets and the sounds of automatic gunfire punctuated the panicked screams of people.

_Christ, this is like a damn zombie movie_, Bill thought. He made his way through the chaos, back towards his apartment. No one paid any strict attention to him, a person in civilian clothes carrying a weapon. Everyone else was too busy dealing with the infected, the zombies, to even care. People that weren't fast enough were torn apart by zombies, or simply trampled to death by their fellow panicking citizens.

By avoiding the main streets, Bill managed to avoid the worst of the chaos. He went back into his apartment, taking care to securely lock all entrances. Meanwhile he went to his closet and pulled out a metal case. Although Bill was by no means a survivalist, he always maintained a survival kit. He kept enough canned food, medical supplies and other items to last him at least a month. Surely, any disaster would blow over by then.

Despite his hard demeanor, Bill was still visibly shaken by Angela's death. Although he knew that there was nothing anyone could have done, he still felt a twinge of guilt. Angela didn't deserve to die. She was too young, and furthermore, had a child. Bill didn't want to think about what was going to happen to the child, or if he had even survived the chaos in the store. He sat on the side of his bed, staring at the floor.

It took a few minutes, but Bill finally stood up and started more important work: securing his apartment for survival. He could not afford to let his emotions get to him. The time for mourning could come later. Bill kept an automatic pistol in his bedroom, just in case. He pulled it out and began to clean it – as he did; he noticed a bleeding bite mark on his arm.

_Oh shit_, he thought as he stared at the wound. Confusion quickly turned to anger.

"That bitch bit me!" he exclaimed. Bill knew it was only a matter of time before he transformed, but even so, he frantically cleaned out the wound and bandaged it. After this, he continued cleaning his pistol. Perhaps the bite hadn't actually penetrated, perhaps the blood wasn't his. He was sure that if any bite had drawn blood, he would have noticed beforehand.

He could hope.


	3. Damsel in Disaster

**03: Damsel in Disaster**

Fairfield University is a small but well known public school that primarily specializes in engineering and sciences. Although not a large institution, it is considered one of the most prestigious schools in the continental United States. About six thousand undergraduates and seven hundred post graduates attend the school along with three hundred staff members. Fairfield University's students represented the best and brightest of the generation.

Somewhere on the campus, in a tiny lecture hall (that held no more than fifty people when stuffed to capacity), a philosophy class was being conducted. There weren't many students – many of them had gone home. The virus that had been spreading throughout the United States had not reached the city of Fairfield yet, but people were still paranoid. In a class of fifty, only thirty were actually present. Most were face masks and a few even had military issue gas masks.

Near the back of the room sat a young woman, who was halfway between asleep and awake. She had a face mask, but it had slipped off her nose and mouth. It now hung limply around her neck. She was wearing a red sports jacket and blue jeans that conformed to the outline of her well shaped legs. The girl's name was Zoey Higgins, age 19. She had brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail and her eyes were grayish-blue, except now they were covered by her eyelids which fluttered occasionally as she tried to stay awake. Zoey had the body of an athlete – she had been on the swim team in high school.

"…and so, that begs the question: are we even alive? How do we know that this reality is not some simulation by some machines? Zoey! Tell us what you think, please."

The girl named Zoey snapped awake immediately – she had not really been listening or paying attention and had no idea what she was being asked. All eyes in the room were on her. Zoey cursed under her breath for her incompetence – she shouldn't have been falling asleep in class. This was the only class she was doing well in – her other classes were another story altogether.

"Um…sorry, professor, what was the question again?" she asked meekly. The class laughed. Zoey looked down at her opened binder – she could feel her face turning red. To distract herself, she read her notes. The words on the page had grown progressively more difficult to read until they had been reduced to lines as Zoey attempted to write her notes.

"What _is_ the question indeed. A remarkably astute answer." The class laughed once again.

Zoey's professor was a tall man with glasses and silver hair. His name was David Levinson, and had a legendary reputation on campus. Although an extraordinarily brutal professor, he had a certain charisma about him that students found irresistible. He had the ability to enthrall a class even with the most mundane topics, and could convey meaning without words. In earlier times, Levinson had been a Marine infantry officer in the Gulf War. How he had gotten to teaching philosophy, no one really knew.

"Let's go over this again, Zoey. First off, a question. What is reality?"

"Reality is the state of things as they actually exist," said Zoey with rapid fire delivery. She had been caught off guard, but she certainly wasn't stupid.

"A textbook answer, but correct nonetheless. Now, Zoey, do we exist?"

"Well, earlier this week you talked about _cognito ergo sum_. I think, therefore I am. I'm sure that I exist because of that, but I can't be sure that you exist, sir."

"Excellent, Zoey. You see, if we wonder about the nature of reality, we must first wonder: what does reality even encompass? Truly, the only thing we can be sure exists is ourselves. Everyone else might just be an AI in a simulated computer program. Or maybe our minds are all just plugged into said computer program, and our lives are actually governed by machines."

"You mean like _The Matrix_, sir?" asked a male student near the front.

"Precisely. And to help us contemplate the nature of reality, we are going to watch _The Matrix_." Cheers went up in the room – Professor Levinson held up a hand to quiet the students down.

"We are, however, out of time. We will watch it tomorrow. Class dismissed."

"Any homework, professor?" asked the male student from earlier.

"No. You already have enough on your minds without a deadly virus sweeping through the nation." And with that, the students began their chatter as they packed up their backpacks and messenger bags. Zoey still felt a little tired, so she retreated into a bathroom. It was comfortably cool and quiet in there. She went to the sink on the far end of the bathroom and began a flow of cold water. It was comforting against her face. The water helped to wash away the invisible layer of tiredness – it also brought back memories of swim team back in high school.

Zoey looked up into the mirror, thinking back to those times. For one, her grades had been better. She had been a straight A student, graduating third in her class. In college, things were different. Zoey was barely holding D's in two of her classes, and was failing in another two. Perhaps the unprecedented freedom that came with college had something to do with it. Thus far, she had spent much of her time holed up in her dorm room, watching horror movies, her favorite genre. Sometimes, on weekends, she would go out with friends to stereotypical drunken college parties. As prestigious an institution that Fairfield University was, it was still a hotbed of partying. Surely, that would be it. Zoey would just have to stop watching movies and stop partying, and maybe she'd get by the semester with C's.

She dabbed her face dry with a paper towel and prepared to leave when suddenly, she heard a retching noise from inside a stall. Zoey jumped slightly. She had not suspected that anyone else was in the bathroom. The retching sound continued, this time accompanied by a wet splash in the toilet.

"Are you all right in there?" Zoey asked gently, wondering if the girl inside might need medical attention. Her query was answered by another fresh round of vomiting.

_God, that sounds really bad in there…_

"I'm fine," a voice sputtered from inside the stall. A second later, more vomiting. "Ugh. I'm throwing up blood."

"Should I go get help?' asked Zoey. Vomiting blood could not possibly be anything good. In fact, according to her knowledge of horror movies, it usually meant someone was about to have their chest explode with an alien. Or that was how she remembered it – she wasn't sure if that was correct.

"Yes, please, get – " The girl inside the stall retched once more. A second later she began hyperventilating. "Oh fuck." Suddenly, the stall door burst open – Zoey yelped in surprise as she jumped back, dropping her backpack in the process. She looked at the girl who had just broken out of the stall.

"Jesus!" Zoey scrambled backwards, smashing her hip hard against a sink. A wave of pain went through her body as she realized what she was seeing: red eyes, lips torn apart by gnashing teeth, and an expression of pure rage. Zoey ignored the pain in her side as she snatched her backpack and went for the door.

_Oh shit it's a zombie the virus is here help me!_

Zoey knew that the infection of a zombie was chiefly transmitted through bites. But that knowledge was from movies, zombies weren't even supposed to be real! Zoey bolted out into the hallway, looking terrified. She slammed the door shut behind her, drawing the attention of several people as they passed.

"Is something wrong?" Zoey jumped and looked into the face of Levinson, her professor.

"Oh my god, professor, there's a girl in there, she's really sick and tried to attack me!" Her voice was shrill and terrified. By now, there was a small crowd of bystanders that had gathered to see the panicky girl ramble to a professor about nothing.

"Calm down, Zoey, what did you say?" said Levinson calmly.

"There's a girl in there, she was really sick and went all crazy, I think she might have that rabies disease from the West Coast!"

"Are you sure?" asked Levinson.

"Please, professor, call the police or something!" As Zoey said this, the bathroom door rattled in its frame. Behind it, there was frenzied grunting. Everyone gasped and backed away from the door, except Levinson, who went closer to it.

"Hey, what's going on in there!" he shouted through the wood. His hand went to the knob.

"No, professor!" It was too late – David Levinson opened the door and was promptly engulfed by a rabid girl. Both of them fell to the floor, struggling to gain the upper hand. The students in the hallway panicked and began running.

Zoey and a few others tried to wrestle the girl off the professor, but it was too late. The professor was either dead or unconscious – either way; the rabid zombie girl was focusing its attention on everyone else. Zoey turned around and ran as fast as she could out of that building. It didn't matter anymore whether Levinson was dead or alive. Her own well being was more important, no matter what.

Zoey was temporarily blinded by the bright sunlight outside. Despite her fear, she still fumbled in her backpack for her sunglasses. They were expensive, and nearly indestructible, having been designed by Oakley. Her parents had given her the sunglasses as a birthday present. She was proud never to have lost them, and by now, removing them from her backpack or purse whenever she went outside had become instinctual.

She slipped the glasses onto her face and looked around. The campus still seemed normal. There weren't many people walking around, but that was to be expected, with so many people leaving the campus to go home to their families. Zoey looked around once again and saw several people running, as if they were being pursued. She began running as well, back towards her dorm room.

Over the sound of wind rushing past her ears and her own panting, Zoey could hear screams and cars colliding in the streets. She slowed down, looking around for a police officer, campus security guard, anyone. But the only people she could see were panicked civilians and, to her horror, more of the zombies. The speed of the zombies was mesmerizing, but their viciousness was simply terrifying. Zoey watched in horror as some zombies overwhelmed a hapless bystander and beat him to a bloody pulp.

The sound of breaking glass cut through her trance – she looked left and saw that a small group of zombies had escaped a building by jumping through a first floor window. Although they were severely cut and bleeding, they roared and advanced on her.

Zoey ran for her life. She could already see her dormitory getting closer – behind her, the zombies slowly gained ground. All she needed now was her keycard –

"Oomph!" Before she knew it, she was facedown on the concrete sidewalk with several zombies grabbing at her ankles. Her Oakley sunglasses had fallen off her face and lay useless a few feet away, and her hands were stinging with abrasions. It was lucky she had been wearing a jacket, for it took most of the impact.

"Let me go!" she screamed, kicking desperately. Zoey felt her foot connect with something, probably a jaw. She felt whatever she had kicked break – it was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. One of her ankles was free and she kicked as hard as she could. Soon, her other foot was free. Zoey scrambled to her feet – the two zombies lay facedown on the ground, jaws grotesquely lying open with blood pouring out.

Squinting from the sunlight, she made her way to the door, swiped her keycard and stumbled into the dormitory. Zoey took the stairs three at a time, and didn't stop until she reached the third floor where she lived. Her heart and mind were racing as she went into her dorm room.

Her roommate was there, sitting at her desk and nursing a wound on her arm. As soon as Zoey came in, she hastily covered it with her sleeve. Zoey had noticed, but made no indication thereof.

"Hi Leanne," said Zoey dully. Her roommate Leanne Archer had blond hair and wore glasses. Leanne was younger than Zoey by a few months.

"You look like shit, Zoey, are you all right?"

"Well, some girl went berserk and tried to kill me, then killed my professor, and a bunch of them chased me here. How was your day?"

"Well…" Leanne was suddenly very pale. She stood up, looking scared. As she did, a few drops of blood hit the floor. The blood from the wound on her arm had pooled through her sweater.

"Leanne?" Zoey also stood up.

"Zoey…they said the disease never made it here, right?" It was easy to tell that she was scared. "I mean…I'm not infected, right?"

"Leanne, what are you talking about?" asked Zoey, even though she already knew the answer. Leanne had been bitten; it was only a matter of time before she turned. Zoey's mind was racing with millions of questions as she faced her roommate and friend. "Come on, talk to me."

"I…this guy…he bit me on the arm…" Leanne's lip quivered and she began to cry. "I don't want to die!" she wailed.

Despite her fear, Zoey couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for Leanne. She took a few cautious steps towards her roommate, and when she wasn't attacked, Zoey helped Leanne into a sitting position.

"How do you feel?" asked Zoey.

"It hurts," Leanne sobbed. "Oh my god, I don't want to die, I don't want to become them!"

"Don't worry," said Zoey soothingly. She inspected the wound and saw that the flesh around the bite had turned black and rotten looking. Zoey placed a hand on Leanne's forehead – she was burning up. "How long?"

"About…about…" Leanne's words dissolved into more tears. Then, she vomited – Zoey saw the green goop from the salad Leanne had eaten earlier that day, as well as dark red blood. "Oh god, I'm sorry Zoey…"

Leanne's body twitched violently. She leapt out of her chair and grabbed at Zoey. Her eyes had turned red. Although she was smaller than Zoey, Leanne (or rather, her body, for she was surely dead) was very strong. She knocked Zoey to the floor whilst snarling gibberish.

Zoey put out her left arm as protection against her former roommate. A second later, searing pain shot through that limb, jarring her to reality. Leanne had bitten Zoey and was shaking her head while biting like some sort of animal. She lashed out with her right arm, smashing Leanne's jaw and releasing her arm. Zoey didn't feel much pain, for the adrenaline in her body was too high. She summoned up all her strength and forced the zombie off of her.

Still, Leanne continued to try and attack Zoey – a mirror on the wall shattered in the struggle. Zoey grabbed one of the shards, ignoring that it cut a gash in her hand. She jammed the shard into Leanne's throat – a spray of blood poured out, mixing infected blood with her own blood. Leanne continued to attack, gurgling as she did so.

Zoey pushed Leanne to the floor, pinning the struggling girl down by her shoulders. Leanne continued to bleed out her slit throat, but soon, the flow stopped and Leanne ceased to move. Zoey dragged the body outside and unceremoniously left it in the middle of the hallway. She went back inside and locked herself in.

Zoey looked out the window and saw that more and more people outside were being killed. It took a few more seconds, but finally, a wave of sadness, anger and confusion washed over her. A few tears fell from Zoey's blue eyes, accompanied by a few sobs. Outside the dorm, a series of gunshots rang out. Zoey finally broke down and collapsed to the floor, crying. A wave of despair washed over her, and she felt like she was drowning in it. She shut her eyes and covered her ears, trying to drown out the sounds of people dying outside, but still, the horrible noises came through.

"No, no, NO!" she screamed as if trying to deny it all. "This isn't happening!"

Of course, no one heard her or listened. The devastation outside continued, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Zoey could do. Zoey felt the stinging of the Leanne's bite and looked down at her arm, where Leanne's blood had mixed with her own blood from the bite as well as the gash on her hand that was still bleeding. So far, no blackening or rotting of flash that she could see…but that didn't mean a thing.

Leanne had kept a pocketknife in her desk drawer – Zoey crossed the room, found it and whipped out the small blade. She wondered where she would have to cut in order to successfully sever her arm. Zoey placed the blade next to her shoulder and took a deep breath.

She stopped, realizing that by now, whatever virus that Leanne had been carrying would surely have made it past her arm by now. Severing it would only serve to cause unnecessary suffering and would probably cause her to bleed to death. The only thing she could do now was to wait. Leanne had not specified how long ago she had been bitten, but surely, it could not be more than a few hours. She had talked to Leanne earlier that morning, about three hours ago.

"Shit," said Zoey. "Fucking shit."


	4. Working Class Chaos

**04: Working Class Chaos**

Viral outbreaks are nothing new to people. In a way, a viral outbreak is nature's way of taking out the trash. Some will die, and those strong enough to resist will pass their genes to the next generation. It is natural selection in one of many forms. With the advent of modern healthcare, however, a viral outbreak is less of a problem, little more than momentary front page news. Life goes on.

And that was how it was at Keller Technology Corporation. Thousands of workers still reported for their jobs, even with the threat of the virus known as "super rabies." Although it was undoubtedly a scary thing, a simple virus was no reason to be distracted. In the corporate world, products have to be made and sold, and people still need to be paid. That didn't necessarily stop some of the workers from leaving, however. At corporate headquarters in the city of Fairfield, on the top floor of a tall office building, a man sat in an office.

His name was Louis Edison Barker, age 29. He held the position at KTC headquarters as Junior Systems Analyst. His job mostly entailed "researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements", as Wikipedia might have put it. That job was certainly a few steps higher than flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant, even if it was boring.

He was African American, and had the build of a basketball player. He was tall and slender at six foot two, with a shaved head and serious expression. Louis was wearing his typical work attire – white button up shirt, a red tie, gray trousers and expensive shoes. It made him look professional, and he liked the look. He had come a long way from his youth, growing up in a poor neighborhood where only a small number of students managed to graduate. Among African Americans, the rate was even lower.

But Louis had defied the odds – as the oldest of three children, he survived through hard economic conditions and racial prejudice to eventually study business and computer science at Stanford University. The pattern had been followed by his younger siblings. Kara, his sister, went to Johns Hopkins while his brother James went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The Barker family was able to pull themselves out of the bad neighborhood and move to a more peaceful one, where death by gunshot was no longer a real threat.

He looked down at his watch and wondered where the hell his boss was. Louis had written a letter requesting to quit his job several weeks prior. Although money still needed to be made, he wanted a change of pace. Louis had never particularly enjoyed his job, even if the money was good. Every day was the same. There was too much monotony, and not enough excitement. His family wanted him to visit in Ohio. So after much personal debate, Louis wrote the letter. Today was his last day of work. Tomorrow morning he would fly out to see his family in time for Thanksgiving. Finally, the door opened and Louis' boss walked in.

"Good afternoon, sir!" said Louis briskly, standing up to shake the boss' hand.

"Same to you, Louis," replied his boss, a short white man named Hank who was slightly chubby, and bald as an egg. "Have a seat." Louis sat back down, wondering what he was being called in for. It _was_ his last day of work, after all. Was there some problem he had failed to see?

"Anyway, Louis, let's not be so formal. Do you know why you're here?"

"Honestly, I don't, sir."

"Aw, call me Hank, we're still buddies right?" It was true: Hank and Louis maintained a friendly relationship and would often go to bars after work and watch sports on television.

"Of course," said Louis.

"Glad to hear it. Anyway, when an employee in a position like yours leaves, I like to talk to them, get a debriefing, you know?"

"I suppose so," said Louis. He suddenly felt nervous: Hank was going to ask him why he left, why he didn't enjoy the job.

"Well, first things first. In all these years, you've been one of our greatest assets. We've never had a junior systems analyst as good as you, and the guy who's replacing you is nowhere near as good."

"Thanks," said Louis.

"I've written you letters of recommendation too. Good ones. Have you got a new job yet?"

"Not yet, I haven't even been applying."

"Well, you should get one soon, times are tough."

"Don't worry about me, I'll just be visiting my family and then applying for a new job right after."

"Sounds good," said Hank. "Well, here's the hard part I have to ask. Why'd you quit?" Louis thought for a second.

"Well, it's not like I hated my job or something…I just felt like I needed something different. A change of pace and all that. I think I could try picking up a different set of skills and applying them to another job, you know?"

"That makes sense," replied Hank, nodding. "Basically, you feel you've outgrown just being junior systems analyst?"

"More or less."

"I read you. And I envy you, really."

"Why's that?"

"Because you have the freedom to quit. No wife or kids to take care of, and you're still making top dollar salary. It gives you breathing room. Just like you, I've got a boss, only he's an asshole who doesn't actually do any work."

"That is one great thing about being single," said Louis.

"Ah, well. Anyway, big point: we're going to miss having you. Wherever you go, I wish you the best of luck."

"Thanks, Hank."

"Don't mention it. Also, one more thing. You still up for watching the game tonight?"

"Just like old times, huh? Always." Hank smiled his approval and stood up, as did Louis. They exchanged another handshake, and Louis proceeded to leave the office. He opened the door, entered the secretary's office and halted.

There was blood splattered on the desk and the computer station where Hank's secretary Jill worked. Jill was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh fuck," said Louis.

"What's wrong?" asked Hank, unable to see what was happening. Louis moved aside to let Hank view the gory scene. Hank gasped in horror. "Oh my god…what happened here?"

Louis stepped into the secretary's office, wondering the exact same question. Minutes earlier he had been let into Hank's office by Jill, a cute redhead with freckles and glasses. Evidently, something had happened to Jill in those few minutes.

"We never heard anything," said Louis.

"Well, corporate HQ decided that executives get soundproofed doors…I have no fucking idea why though. Jesus, look at all that blood. You don't think that it's Jill, do you?" Hank was looking terrified. He reached into his pocket and removed a handkerchief with which to wipe the sweat off his shiny head.

Louis observed the scene, his heart beating faster. There was a large amount of blood on the desk – some of it flowed off the side of the desk like a red waterfall. His eyes followed the trail and saw that there were some smear marks on the wooden floor as if someone injured had been dragged.

"Oh god," said Hank. "Look at these." He handed Louis a pair of glasses. The metal frames were bent out of shape and the lenses had been shattered beyond repair. "They're Jill's."

Louis turned to the door. Suddenly, there was an enormous thudding sound against it.

"Jesus! I'm calling the cops!" Hank frantically went back into his office. Louis was about to follow when the door was ripped out of its hinges, falling to the floor with a thud. Startled, Louis stumbled back, watching the horrific scene unfold.

The body of a woman was thrown into the room, broken and bloodied – Louis immediately recognized the skirt, white blouse and red hair. Jill's body slammed into an opposing wall with a sickening thud and slowly slid down. He heard a slight moan from the girl and was shocked to see that she was still clinging to life.

However, there was no time for that now – someone else came into the room, foaming at the mouth. The man was wearing a suit and tie just like Louis, but his red eyes and vicious expression indicated he was no longer an office worker.

"Shit!" Louis shouted, scrambling to get into the office. The enraged lunatic bellowed and charged forward. Louis didn't even have time to close the door.

"Louis, I called the police and they're on – fuck, what is that?!" Hank dropped his phone and backed away from the monster. He had a stapler in his hand. "Back away!"

The monster stood still for a second, contemplating both Louis and Hank. The shell of a man gnashed its teeth before finally settling on Louis. It screamed and lunged forward – Louis threw his arms out to protect himself, but failed. He was thrown bodily to the floor. The infected man on top of him salivated ferociously; some of it even landed in Louis' mouth as he yelled his protest of being pinned like this.

"Get off!" Louis shouted, also spitting out the sour foam that had landed in his mouth. He looked up at his assailant and marveled for a second on these circumstances. Louis had seen horror films before, but never thought they could happen to him. By rules of zombie films, he was already dead; the infection would undoubtedly have spread to him via the saliva.

Hank appeared from out of nowhere. He had scrapped the stapler in favor a letter opener. Bellowing like a bull, Hank brought the letter opener down, sinking the blade deep into the back of the zombie's neck. The blood flowed like a waterfall, soaking Louis' expensive shirt. Louis involuntarily shivered as she felt the warm fluid against his chest.

"You get off of him!" Hank yelled. He stumbled back, letting go of the letter opener, which stayed ludicrously embedded in the zombie's neck. This distraction was enough to cause the zombie to cease attacking Louis. It jumped to its feet, gurgling in its blood, and lunged at Hank.

"Watch out!" shouted Louis, but even as he said this, the zombie entangled itself with Hank's pudgy frame. He watched in horror as they struggled briefly before finally crashing through the window to fall dozens of stories to the ground. "HANK!"

Louis knew there was no saving Hank, but he still scrabbled over to the broken window and looked down at the streets in shock. He couldn't see Hank or the zombie, and the air blowing in his face compounded with stress was making him dizzy. Louis retreated to the warm safety of the office and threw up all over the floor. He then remembered that Jill was still in her office.

She had not moved for the entire time – judging by the odd angle at which her neck lay, she was most certainly paralyzed. One side of her face was unrecognizable, crushed by the adrenaline fueled brutality of the zombie. Her remaining eye looked around and fixated its gaze upon Louis. Jill was trying to speak, but all that came out of her ruined throat was a gurgle. Louis could do nothing but grasp her unfeeling hand, providing her some sense of comfort, assuming she was even still lucid. It took over a minute, but eventually, Jill's eye stopped moving and her breathing ceased. Louis left her as she was and proceeded to exit his office.

It was pandemonium everywhere – more zombies had appeared and were terrorizing the people in the general area. For a second, Louis simply stood, watching in abject horror.

_This can't be happening_. He wanted to believe that it was all a nightmare. Perhaps he was already on the plane to Ohio and was simply sleeping – soon he would wake up with a concerned passenger or flight attendant asking if he was all right. And of course he would be all right, it was just a nightmare – airplanes were uncomfortable places to sleep, and the dry air was just giving him a headache. A drink of water would be all he needed.

Louis opened his eyes and saw that the scene was indeed real. Wasting no time, he maneuvered his way through the chaos and found the stairs. He descended rapidly, counting floors until he reached the level where his own office was at. The entire floor had already been vacated. He entered his office – mostly bare now, because it was supposed to be his last day. Only a laptop computer and a commuter bag remained – however, in his bag, he kept something handy for just this situation.

He held in his hand a Beretta Px4 Storm, a semiautomatic pistol. Louis always carried it in his commuter bag – after all, it was an American right to own and carry a handgun, why shouldn't he? In years of owning it, he had never needed to discharge it defensively. The only rounds he fired were at the local gun range a few blocks down the street. Often, he would go there during his lunch breaks to hone his pistol skills, as well as rent and practice rifles as well. It was an odd hobby for a white collar professional, but a useful one.

Louis was well practiced in loading his Beretta – he had bought the pistol chambered in .40 S&W, which packed more punch than the typical 9mm. Within seconds, he had his Beretta ready to fire. He also packed his laptop away and carried it with him as he exited the office. Louis knew how ridiculous trying to save his laptop was, but some part of him refused to let it go. He saw his reflection in a glass window – a scared looking black man wearing a bloody suit with a laptop bag over his shoulder, carrying a gun. The image of this was morbidly funny.

He continued going down the stairs, knowing that the elevators could only be a death trap. Without the elevators, it was at least fifty floors to descend. But the stairs proved to be a peaceful escape route and he quickly found himself back out on the street. All hell had broken loose.

"Hey, you there with the gun, help me out here!" Louis snapped to his senses and found himself staring at a policeman.

"All right, officer," said Louis dully. The police officer was reloading his pistol. To Louis' surprise, he also carried a Px4 Storm. "Say, is that in .40 S&W?"

"Who gives a flying fuck, just shoot the fuckheads!" the officer snapped. Louis nodded and searched in the crowd for a target. He quickly found one; his weapon was leveled at what use to be a homeless man, judging from the target's unkempt appearance and dirty clothes. The sights of Louis' Beretta were specially fitted with tritium so as to glow at night. In the dim overcast conditions that foretold rain, they were just as effective. Louis squeezed the trigged. He felt the gun jump in his hands. The muzzle flash was overwhelmingly bright, leaving purple streaks in his vision. His ears rang and he felt dizzy from the sheer loudness of the shot. He had never fired without ear protection before.

Louis suddenly had an urge to sneeze, and he lowered his gun, scratching his nose to get rid of the tickling sensation.

"Hey, are you helping me or what?" Suddenly the cop was engulfed by a zombie – he screamed in terror, but his screams quickly cut to a gurgle as the zombie ripped his throat open, spilling more blood onto the pavement. Louis swiveled and aimed, firing several shots. The zombie fell limply to the ground, twitching. At some point, Louis realized that he had just shot a child – no more than eight years old.

"Oh no!" he yelped. Louis bent down and grabbed the rest of the dead policeman's ammunition. He ran as fast as he could, but didn't make it far before stumbling on something slippery. Louis looked down at the obstruction and realized that it was his friend Hank, shattered and spread all over the place. Falling dozens of stories down to pavement had not done well for Hank's soft frame. Louis recognized vague shape of a human torso, flattened by impact. Intestines littered the area, and whitish pieces of fat lay quivering on the ground. He could see Hank's head, grotesquely misshapen and split open, revealing a ruined slop of wet pink brain.

"Oh Hank…what have they done to you?" he said weakly. Louis stood up, ignoring the fact that Hank's guts were now all over his hands. He looked around for an escape route, but saw none. There was only death and destruction.

_I'm in hell_.


	5. The World's Biggest Bar Fight

**05: The World's Biggest Bar Fight**

On a rainy evening in Fairfield, after most people have finished going through the motions of their boring dead-end jobs, office buildings shut down and go dark. In contrast, other places begin getting their first customers of the day.

The Vampire's Lair: one of the hottest strip clubs in the entire state of Pennsylvania. Here, a man and his friends could come in and pay large amounts of money to watch women strip and dance exotically. For thirteen dollars, one could gain entry. For twenty five, one could receive a lap dance. Meanwhile, those who needed refreshments could grab whatever they desired at the well stocked bar.

Keeping with its name, The Vampire's Lair was distinctly horror themed and the strippers often wore variations of sexy vampire lingerie. The place was distinctly dimly lit on the inside. It resembled the inside of a castle, which made for an interesting backdrop. The private dance rooms more resembled dungeons. It was an unusual idea for a strip club, but it was highly successful. It seemed that a large number of males liked the idea of having sexy vampires bite them on the neck.

Not everyone liked that, of course. Within the depths of the Vampire's Lair was a man sitting down and looking bored. None of the strippers approached him offering lap dances with their cute (fake) lisps and accents. He was not a customer, but an employee. His name was Francis James McAvoy.

Francis was an intimidating man, well over six feet tall, sporting a buzz cut and threatening facial hair. His eyes were perpetually locked in an angry glare. Meanwhile, years of a hard life (including a stint in prison) had made him a strong man. He was a recreational bodybuilder and could easily bench three hundred pounds, if not more.

Perhaps that was why he was hired as a bouncer for the Vampire's Lair. Unlike most of the employees, he didn't wear some "faggot vampire suit." The club was perfectly content with letting him keep his favorite garb: a dirty white undershirt, black leather vest and jeans. No one messed with Francis. No one ever told Francis what to do. If a customer ever became too unruly, such as abusing and harassing one of the strippers, all he needed to do was cross the room and tap the offender on the shoulder. Most quickly stopped what they were doing and left the establishment.

Only a few ever thought to stand up to Francis. Typically, they were drunk out of their minds and would throw a clumsy punch, only to be countered by being forcefully restrained and thrown bodily out of the club. Regulations made it illegal for Francis to use excessive violent force, although it certainly still happened. No one ever bothered to say anything about the incidents – only cursory visits from public safety officers as required by law. No one ever did anything about it. The police and public officials also came down to the Vampire's Lair, because there was no better way to wind down after a hard day of work in the city.

This worked well for Francis. He was paid for it, and otherwise, was never asked any questions. It seldom mattered that he had been convicted of small crimes numerous times. Francis' worst offense was a convenience store robbery, which landed him in prison for six years.

While the pay was good, the job was surprisingly boring. It was one thing to get paid to be intimidating to people. But he also had the duties of taking care of the strippers, oftentimes walking them to their cars late at night. Sure, they were sexy, but Francis seldom had interest. Many of those strippers were drug addicts and likely infected with every STD known to man. The others were naïve, liberal college students searching for an easy way to pay for school. They were too intellectual and asked too many questions. At the same time, they were dumb. Francis hated the strippers (though he didn't hate watching them as they danced) and hated his job, even if it paid well.

For that matter, Francis hated a lot of things and would often express this by loudly saying "I hate" followed by whatever object he hated. This was a common occurrence. Someone would mention the Yankees, and Francis would reply "I hate the Yankees." Alternately it was "I hate the Red Sox." It wasn't really a deep hatred. Mostly, Francis said it to spite people. He hated the government, the president, vegetarians, hippies (especially hippies), cars, trucks, vans (_especially_ vans) and the outdoors, among thousands of other things.

Francis looked up from his chair as the first customers of the day walked in. There were three of them, all officer workers. White collar people – Francis hated them.

"Hey, you got ID?" he demanded. Francis knew that every one of them had to be over eighteen – in fact, all three were probably married to some fat, butt ugly wife and wanted an escape.

"ID? You really think we're trying to sneak in or something?" retorted a thin man with thick glasses.

"I said, show me your goddamn ID!" said Francis. "No ID, no entry, got it pal?" The office workers all looked very miffed as they produced their wallets (fancy leather ones, no less) and showed their drivers licenses. After that, Francis waved them through the door.

"I hate office workers," he said out loud.

"You hate a lot of things, Francis," said the girl at the cash register as she put away the money. Her name was Melissa, and Francis had to admit, he didn't hate her at all. Melissa was not like the other strippers – she was clean, naturally beautiful and actually intelligent. She was a junior at Fairfield University, but she didn't let that level of education go to her head. Melissa saw stripping as just another job, and an easy one. She enjoyed her line of work and never complained once. Melissa loved the idea of undressing in front of strangers, loved it when some drooling guy hastily forced a five dollar bill into her panties. All she had to do was virtually masturbate on a stage with a pole for a few hours and she would bring home enough cash to pay her month's rent. And that was just a single night. Melissa was constantly turned on by her job and after some time, customers could see the wetness through her panties. Her tips, accordingly, shot through the roof.

As far as Francis was concerned, that was perfectly acceptable. Out of all the strippers he had bedded, Melissa was his favorite and on some nights, when Melissa had no tests to study for, they would drive out to her apartment for kinky sex for blissful sexual release. She wasn't a magazine supermodel, but was beautiful in a natural kind of way. Dark hair, blue eyes, and perfectly formed body. She spoke with a distinct Pennsylvania accent, but when talking to customers, would fake a cute and subtle lisp.

"Just another day at work," Francis replied. "Which I hate."

"Oh, please. If you hated this place so much, you'd have left. There must be something in here you don't hate."

"Nope. I hate this place and everyone in it. If the pay wasn't so goddamn good, I'd have skipped out."

"Hey! You like me, don't you?" Melissa pouted indignantly.

"Well, I don't hate you, if that's what you mean," said Francis. Melissa pretended to look shocked.

"Well, Francis, forget about going home with me tonight." She huffed angrily and turned to face the next group of customers, a pair of bad smelling obese men with large amounts of arm hair. Melissa momentarily looked disgusted, but quickly put on her game face. "Hi, welcome to the Vampire's Lair!" she said in a sexy voice. Her lisp was barely discernible but enough to make the men fork over their money and walk in. As soon as they were out of earshot, Melissa turned back to Francis.

"Did you see that guy?" she said. "God, he's like King Kong or something."

"I hate King Kong," said Francis. "But yeah."

"Right. So, how was your day?" asked Melissa, trying to keep the conversation going. Francis was not a talkative type, least of all for casual conversation, and was perfectly content to sit back lazily and admire Melissa's figure. He knew that she enjoyed sleeping with him just as much as he did with her. She was an easy one to retain.

"Well, I ate KFC and sat on my ass all day. Yep, pretty fun. What did you do? Discover the cure to cancer?"

"Well, no," said Melissa. "Just went to class as usual."

"Well shit, that's boring."

"Yeah. We're boring people, I guess. I kind of wish there were more strippers here like me, I'm getting sick of talking to crack whores. Hm. I should talk to my friend Zoey, she's gorgeous."

"Zoey?"

"Yep. Zoey Higgins. She's only a freshman now, but hey, I started as a freshman. I bet I could teach her what I know."

"Since when did you become a stripper recruiter?"

"Hey, I'd like to have some more girl friends here, you know?"

"Whatever. I don't really care about your friends."

"Of course you don't. You don't really care about anyone."

"Nope. Just the way I like it."

"Right. Well, it's time for my shift, so I guess I'll see you later, Francis." Another girl took Melissa's place at the front desk. Francis stood up and did a brief patrol of the area, but with only a few customers in the club, there was nothing to really be worried about. Just another boring day at the office.

He moped about for a little bit longer and went towards the back of the club, where the bathrooms were at. The private rooms were also in this area – there were four at a time, and for a large amount of money, one could be reserved for a client and a stripper or two.

As he passed, he heard a dreadful scream – a female's, it was probably from one of the strippers. He paused and listened for a split second. It was coming from inside one of the rooms. A second later, a door burst open. Out came one of the strippers, scantily clad in lacy lingerie, clutching a wound on her shoulder that was bleeding profusely.

"He bit me!" she shrieked tearfully, running to the safety of Francis' imposing figure. "He fucking bit me!"

Instantly, the club was in a panic – the DJ stopped the music and the bartender went to grab a first aid kit. The clients congregated around Francis and the wounded stripper, pulling out their cell phones and calling the police. Francis snarled angrily under his breath – he hated cell phones and cops, and hated that people were simply standing around calling.

"Stand back!" shouted Francis. The crowd drew back slightly. He kept his eye on the opened door of the private room as he escorted the stripper away from the area. He stole a glance down at her: she was crying and bleeding heavily from the wound in her shoulder. There were bruises over the rest of her body and face.

"I…I think I'm going to pass out…" she moaned. A second later, her body went limp and she fell to the floor.

"Someone get the first aid kit!" The bartender appeared and began to stem the bleeding, but to no avail.

"It's the axillary," he said softly. "She needs a hospital, I can't do much here."

"Well do something, Doctor Stupid, maybe call a hospital?"

"It's all right, the ambulances are on their way," said one of the patrons.

"Good! Now, for the fucker in the private room…" Francis stood up, wielding a small fighting knife. He boldly walked over and called through the door. "Hey, fucker, come on out and go pick on someone your own size!" Francis didn't normally feel very protective of the strippers, but no one, _no one_, was allowed to disturb the peace of the club. He would not allow it, and if a few teeth had to be knocked out, so be it.

Francis didn't hear any speech from the room – he only heard a loud snarling and saw a human figure dash out with blazing speed. Before he could even react, he was on the ground, winded by the impact. Francis heard screaming all around him. He took a brief second to collect his thoughts and focused on the knife in his hand.

It was a KA-BAR branded knife with a skeleton handle and a three inch blade. Though small, the knife exuded deadly intimidation. It was colored a matte black for low visibility, except for the cutting edge – just a sliver of silver steel. Francis had tied parachute cord around the handle for better grip. He kept the fiberglass sheath in his belt for easy access. The knife had been given to him as a gift from a friend many years ago. Thus far, it had served him well for generic use. Today would be the first time he would use it defensively.

Francis scrambled to his feet, searching for the attacker. The entire club was in a panic. People were screaming and trampling each other to get to the exit. Meanwhile, the deranged assailant was having a ball of a time attacking anyone within reach. He was a slightly overweight man wearing a business suit, but moved with the agility of an athlete. He was seemingly unstoppable, biting and beating helpless victims on the floor while shouting gibberish, as if he were speaking in tongues.

Francis charged forward and rammed his blade into the assailant's shoulder. He felt the cracking of the shoulder blade – surely, enough to deter any attacker with excruciating pain. Instead, the attacker ceased its attack on the helpless victim and turned around. They locked eyes: Francis saw that this man was clearly infected with something. His eyes were red and bloodshot and the muscles under his pudgy face twitched uncontrollably. His teeth were stained red with blood.

"Whoa!" Francis ducked to the side as the attacker lunged. His attacker had distinctly resembled a vampire, or some other horror movie monster. Francis hated horror movies, he could never tell the difference. "Over here, you damn vampire, come and get some!" Francis drove a large fist into the zombie's face, feeling the satisfying crunching of cartilaginous tissue. Warm, wet blood poured out of the zombie's nose and onto his hand. The zombie, however, was only momentarily stunned, and simply resumed attacking. Instead of going for Francis, it went for Melissa, who was crawling towards the exit with a visibly broken leg.

"Francis, help!" Melissa screamed, but by the time she had spoken, it was too late. The zombie leaped on top of the helpless girl and bit down hard on her throat. Melissa couldn't even scream as the zombie chewed her trachea and vital arteries to pieces. Francis could only watch as Melissa's bare, well formed legs kicked frantically before slowing down to sporadic jerks and then, complete stillness. Francis didn't even bother to disturb the zombie anymore – he was now in the crowd with everyone else, running outside into the street.

There was equal pandemonium outside – more zombies had appeared and were freely attacking everyone in sight. Francis growled angrily. He saw a dead policeman on the ground whose hands were tightly gripped around a shotgun, a twelve-gauge Remington 870. Francis stepped over and pried the weapon out of the officer's hands.

"Sorry about this, cop, but I need it more than you." He grabbed whatever ammunition he could find and proceeded to move in the opposite direction of the crowd, away from the panicked citizens. Francis knew exactly how to escape from these situations. Although he would stand out moving the opposite direction, he was also harder to trace – cops often followed the crowds, expecting someone to be hiding within.

As he moved down the street, he began to think about the world. It had changed, dramatically. Just minutes ago, he was an ordinary person (with a criminal record, of course, but nothing too major) with an ordinary job (if being a bouncer for a club could be called ordinary). He was not an intellectual. Francis had not gone to college and had just barely graduated from high school (for he hated classes), but he was certainly not stupid. What he lacked in knowledge about mathematics and science, he made up for by being street smart. Once the shit hit the fan, it didn't matter if you were a Harvard graduate. You were on the same level as everyone else.

He sneered slightly at the thought. All these liberals thought that they could help make the world equal and fair for everyone. But Francis knew better. The world was not fair, and there wasn't enough stuff to go around. To make all things equal, disaster needed to strike.

Chaos is the ultimate equalizer of the modern world. Only the strong survive.


	6. Out of the Frying Pan

**06: Out of the Frying Pan…**

Zoey had lost track of how much time had passed since it all began. After leaving her friend Leanne's body to rot outside, she withdrew into the safety of quiet denial. She pressed her hands against her ears, trying to drown out the sounds of people screaming and dying outside. It was partially effective. She could hear the sound of her own blood flowing, like an ocean. The background screaming just faded into the rushing noise, but nothing could stop the sounds of gunfire. Every time a shot rang out, she would jump and sob quietly. It went on for hours until Zoey let her arms drop from tiredness. She slid to the floor, no longer caring. There was nothing she could do to deny it. The world had gone to hell, and she was alive in the middle of it.

Zoey lay on the floor for a long time, until inevitably, the sounds stopped. The horrible sounds of death were replaced by an eerie stillness, like a cold winter morning where the snow absorbed all ambient noise. It was peaceful, but Zoey knew in her heart that it was deadly.

Her dorm room, like the others in her building, was equipped with its own private bathroom. Inevitably, she got thirsty, and turned on the sink. The sound of the tap was unnaturally loud in the silence, but the water was refreshingly cool. She took a long drink and began stocking up whatever she could. Zoey filled up several water bottles and eventually, emptied out the recycle bin and filled that with water as well. She had no idea how long the water supply would last, but thus far, the water still flowed as normal. She didn't dare take a shower, but certainly had enough to wash her face and cleanse her wounds.

Zoey inspected the bite, which had mostly clotted over and no longer hurt so much. Closer inspection revealed no traces of blackness or rotting. From what Zoey could tell, the wound was healing already. Perhaps she was immune. She _had_ to be immune, else she would have turned hours, even days ago. That gave Zoey a small degree of comfort. She wasn't going to become one of _them_. Still, death could strike in other ways.

Zoey had her laptop computer turned on and plugged in. It was a faint glow in a dark room – hopefully, invisible from outside. One thing that hadn't been disrupted was the power. Fairfield University was a revolutionary campus, functioning mostly on solar energy. Every roof had large arrays of panels that powered basic electronics. Though expensive, it truly paved the way for renewable energy. Zoey had taken advantage of this, checking on the news updates. But the Internet eventually stopped updating. One by one, websites began to shut down from lack of maintenance. She tried international web sites to no avail. China went down, and then France, then the United Kingdom. Eventually, the entire internet simply stopped responding. She was alone.

Days of isolation didn't bode well for Zoey. Deprived of the ability to shower, her hair was messy and tangled. Her eyes seemed exhausted and dull. Zoey seemed thinner than usual – she hadn't eaten much. There was nothing in her dorm room except a single cup of Ramen and a few Pop Tarts. Zoey wondered whether or not she could risk leaving her room to go downstairs to the basement, where a communal dorm kitchen was kept and maintained. If the refrigerators were still running, the perishables would surely still be there. Plus, there were dry goods and canned items in the kitchen.

Zoey put an ear to her door, and heard nothing but silence. How dangerous could it possibly be to go outside? She ran through the possibilities. Maybe the zombies simply stood around dormant until disturbed, in which case, she would be ambushed instantly. She would be tackled to the floor and killed in seconds. Or, if she managed to escape that, she would not make it back to her room. Instead, she would escape outside, into the darkness, and be swarmed by hundreds of bloodthirsty zombies. She would die in seconds, and in the dark. Maybe there wouldn't be zombies, maybe instead there would be bands of criminals roaming the area to pillage and rape. They would find her and brutally fuck her brains out and leave her for dead in the street, where she would be killed quickly by more zombies. Or, they might keep her alive as a sex object, and she would spend the rest of her days forced to pleasure horrible smelling men with no amount of sensitivity.

"Fuck it," said Zoey, and she opened the door. The hallway was lit and empty, except for Leanne's corpse. It smelled horrible. Zoey gritted her teeth and held her breath as she pushed the body further down the hall. It was horrible: she could almost taste the smell, an oily rancid presence that was nearly tangible.

Zoey quietly went down the stairs until she reached the lowest level. So far, no resistance. It was even quieter than it had been during midterms, where everyone was either studying, or partying somewhere off campus. She walked into the kitchen and flicked on the lights – the room was blessedly empty. Zoey almost laughed in relief as she sidled over to the refrigerator. She opened it, and was surprised by the plethora of food items that were still there. Zoey picked out a sandwich, unwrapped it and began eating as she searched the dry cupboards. She loaded whatever she found into a backpack, which soon became heavy.

Zoey was about to leave the kitchen when she heard a noise from outside in the hallway. She dropped the backpack in surprise. The noise she heard sounded distinctly animal-like, but at the same time, not. She wanted to scream, but did not – something was moving outside. Zoey's hands began to shake as whatever it was moved closer. She saw the shadow on the ground outside.

Her right hand reached out and quietly opened a drawer, where there was a knife. It seemed strange that one could find a large kitchen knife inside a dorm kitchen, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Zoey had a weapon she could defend herself with. The knife was a force multiplier – she had a chance now.

A horrendous shriek sounded from the hallway, like some predatory animal about to pounce. The sound chilled Zoey to the bone, and whatever had made that noise was coming closer. A few tears ran down Zoey's cheeks as her grip on the knife tightened.

"Who's there!" she said shrilly. "Go away, I'm armed!" Her voice was considerably less brave sounding than her words. She was answered by another inhuman shriek – and something poked a head into the door frame. It was a zombie, as she had predicted, but unlike the ones she had seen, this one was crawling on all fours, like some mutated cat. If this were a horror movie, it would have been the monster that could leap through the air and stalk its prey mercilessly, an infected hunter.

This particular specimen was wearing a dark hoodie sweater that obscured its face. For a wild moment, Zoey was reminded of the character Altair from the videogame _Assassin's Creed_. She and her roommate had both contributed to buying an Xbox 360 gaming console, which proved to be a wonderful distraction from studying. It was also a convenient DVD player where the two could watch bad horror movies. _Assassin's Creed_ had been one of Zoey's favorites, if even just to watch Leanne play.

A second later, the infected hunter was in the air, flying towards Zoey with horribly sharp claws extended. Zoey instinctively raised the knife, but was brought down hard. The back of her head hit the tile floor of the kitchen; she saw stars and nearly passed out. Zoey looked up and saw that she was pinned down by this creature, which was preparing to tear her apart. She rammed the knife deep into the zombie's heart. Although the thing on top of her was not quite human, it still needed basic bodily functions to live. The thing stopped moving and slumped over, dead. Zoey wiggled out from under it and tried to remove the knife. It was, however, stuck within the chest of the hunter, tightly packed against the ribs. She tried, but couldn't remove it.

Zoey was shocked by how easy it had been. She shouldered her backpack full of food and walked to the exit. As she left the kitchen, she heard more noise. With a growing feeling of dread she turned around and was suddenly facing a horde the size of which she had never seen.

"Fuck!" Zoey immediately dropped her bag and began to run. She didn't even go upstairs; it was easier to just open the door and run out into the cold night with the zombies hot on her heels. Zoey realized her mistake too late. She heard more zombies converging on her location. Soon, she would be overrun. Zoey didn't have anything to defend herself with. No gun, no knife, not even a stick. She was figuratively naked out here in the dark. Zoey cursed her stupidity – she had gotten careless and simply walked out, feeling invincible after killing that hunter.

She sank to her knees, resolved to her fate. Zoey had learned about natural selection in her biology class: those fit to survive could produce more offspring and thus preserve desirable traits. Stupidity, was not one of those traits. She would die here, alone, never to mate and produce offspring.

There was a bright light – Zoey looked directly into it, sure that her end had come.

_Well…here goes_. She stood up, allowing the light to wash over her. That light was quickly accompanied by noise, a loud roaring. She suddenly realized that it wasn't the light at the end of the tunnel, it was a motorcycle. The bike was being ridden by a large man with blue jeans, a dirty white shirt and a black vest. He looked menacing with a shotgun across his lap.

"Get on!" he shouted. Zoey ran towards the bike and jumped on the seat behind the mysterious biker. "Now, hold on, this is going to be fast!" She threw her arms around the biker's waist and squeezed her eyes shut as the bike peeled away from the dormitory and roared off into the night. Zoey was terrified and could actually feel hands grabbing at her clothes for a second before they were in the clear. Slowly, she opened her eyes, which were watering against the wind. She wanted to throw up.

"Stop, stop the bike!" The motorcycle pulled to a halt – Zoey leaped off and ran to the side of the road, retching loudly. Finally, she fell to her knees and vomited.

"Hurry it up, we don't have much time!" the biker said bluntly.

"Sorry," said Zoey apologetically as she stood up. "I…thanks for saving me."

"Hey, I just happened to be passing by."

"If you had been one second late…"

"Yeah, yeah, you appreciate what I did, now let's go!" Zoey nodded and hopped onto the motorcycle behind the biker. Without another word, they were off into the street again. A few zombies roamed the streets, but were quickly left behind by the motorbike.

"Sir, who are you?" asked Zoey, shouting over the wind and the roaring of the bike.

"What? Speak louder!"

"Who are you?!"

"Call me Francis," said the biker. "And who are you?"

"I'm Zoey. Nice to meet you," said Zoey. Her eyes stung from the wind, but she kept them open anyway. They were riding down city streets and weaving between piles of rubble and debris. Francis was an expert behind the bars of the bike, deftly maneuvering as if he had years of experience. Zoey could feel the man's muscles working through the leather vest.

_Jeez, this guy's ripped!_ She wanted to get a better look at him, but at the moment, such a move would be inconvenient. Surely, they would have to stop soon. Several minutes passed, and finally, they stopped.

"Get inside," the biker commanded gruffly, pointing. Zoey follow his finger and fixed her gaze on a large wooden shed. She looked around and saw that they were in the middle of some sort of field, probably a football field. Zoey guessed that they were near a high school. She went into the shed, followed closely by the biker, who wheeled the motorcycle in. Francis closed the door and locked it, then placed the bike against the door. For a moment, they were in pitch blackness.

A second later, the shed was filled with a dim glow. Francis had commandeered a regular camping lantern and covered it with a fine wire mesh to reduce the brightness. It was enough light, however, for Zoey to clearly see him. He was tall, muscular and angry looking, with an aggressively shaved head.

"Well, nice to finally see you," said Zoey nervously.

"Likewise, doll."

"Please don't call me doll."

"I'll call you what I want," replied Francis nonchalantly. He was sitting down on a bucket with a can of chili in one hand, and a can opener in the other. "And if you have a problem with that, you can go join the Vampire Club out there."

"No problem," said Zoey. She flipped a bucket over and sat down on it, across from Francis. "And they're not vampires. They're zombies…sort of."

"Call these freaks whatever you want," replied Francis. He ate a large spoonful of chili. "Doesn't matter anyway, when they're trying to kill you. Vampire, zombie, Canadians, doesn't matter."

"Yeah," said Zoey. She eyed the can of chili that Francis was eating and felt her stomach growl. Over the odor of decay and smoke, she could distinctly smell the wonderful spices and meat. "Say, Francis, you wouldn't happen to…"

"Have any more chili? Sure, there's a big huge box right over there. Eat up."

"Thanks," said Zoey. She retrieved her own can of chili, took the can opener and grabbed a spoon. The first bite was heaven. She didn't even stop to savor it; Zoey simply swallowed the bite of chili and went for more. Some of it went down the wrong way and she coughed violently.

"Hey, easy!" said Francis. He leaned over and slapped Zoey hard on the back. Zoey felt a shock wave of pain through her body, but was no longer coughing.

"Sorry about that," she said. Her eyes were watering as she continued to eat the chili, albeit more slowly.

The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes. Zoey was the first to break the silence.

"Thanks again, Francis."

"Like I said, I was just passing by."

"But why? What were you doing out there?"

"You know, just having some fun. I got bored of fucking around in this shed all day, I just needed to get some air, you know?" He chuckled. "I also grab food and shit." Francis reached into a cooler and produced a can of beer. He cracked it open and gulped down half the can in one go. Then he looked over at Zoey.

"So, what are you, college kid?"

"Yeah," said Zoey.

"Well, here you go." He handed Zoey a can of beer. Zoey took it, but didn't open it. She simply stared at the can.

"Something wrong?" asked Francis.

"No, I'm just…never mind." Zoey opened the beer and downed the entire can in one gulp. It tasted horrible – she hated beer. Nonetheless, she set the empty can down and burped loudly. She could taste it on the back of her throat.

"Damn!" said Francis, raising an eyebrow. "Not bad!"

"No more," said Zoey weakly.

"Suit yourself, that means more for me," said Francis. He cracked open another beer, but drank it slowly this time. Zoey simply stared at the floor, feeling numb. The alcohol wasn't affecting her yet, but she still felt sluggish and dull. She wanted to throw up. The events of the last few days were running through her mind again. Some part of her still wanted to deny that it wasn't real, that it was all just a bad dream.

For the past few days, Zoey had to rely upon herself, and her mind was purely focused on her survival. Now that there was someone else alive in the world (which, as far as she knew, was all dead) covering her back, she could take the time to think about other things. Surely, her friends were dead and her family as well. The infection had spread mercilessly, transforming thousands. Some were immune, but even they wouldn't last long in the open. She had been one of the lucky ones.

"Hey kid, you feeling all right?"

"Huh?" Zoey snapped out of her trance. The lantern was still dim, but for some reason, she had to squint her eyes against its brightness.

"You look like shit," Francis declared. "Get some sleep." He unrolled a sleeping bag for Zoey.

"Thanks," said Zoey gratefully. She took off her red jacket and folded it to use as a makeshift pillow. "I'm just a little depressed is all."

"Don't worry about it. You'll feel better in the morning." Zoey nodded and closed her eyes. For the first time in days, she felt relaxed. Her body finally relaxed and within seconds, she was sound asleep in the warm folds of the sleeping bag.

…

She woke up some time later. Francis was fervently tapping her on the shoulder. Zoey sat up quickly, alarmed.

"Quiet!" Francis hissed, holding a finger to his lips.

"What is it?" asked Zoey, as quietly as she could.

"There's something out there." Sure enough, Zoey could hear footsteps outside – slow, but enormously heavy plodding footsteps. She felt the ground shake.

"Is it…one of them?"

"No," said Francis. "It's something else." The two of them sat absolutely still, listening as whatever was outside the shed made a few circles around. They could hear a quiet, monstrous growling, like some massive predator. It continued to circle the shed, thumping the ground with each step. Zoey could even smell it; it was a horridly rancid odor of sweat and decay.

A few more seconds passed when whatever was outside suddenly grunted. The world momentarily stood still and then, was shattered by a savage roar. Zoey covered her ears to shield them from the loudness. The ground rumbled and whatever was outside began running. Judging from the sound, it was running away. She exhaled in relief, feeling light headed – not so much from the lack of oxygen as it was her relief that she had escaped what might have been a quick, albeit painful death.

"Holy fuck," said Zoey weakly, collapsing back onto the floor.

"You can say that again," said Francis.

"Holy fuck." Despite the circumstances, Francis found that statement to be extraordinarily funny.


	7. And Into the Fire

**07: …and Into the Fire**

Sometime during the night, the residual moisture hanging in the air condensed and fell as rain. It was not a light drizzle, but a torrential onslaught of liquid, as if the sky itself was waging war upon the earth with water. The streets became shallow, crimson rivers – pieces of trash and severed fingers floated lazily. It was a grisly sight that would send chills down anyone's spine.

Bill, conditioned against death, didn't mind the bodies in the streets, no matter how mutilated they might be. As far as he was concerned, dead bodies weren't a threat. Right now, he had more important things to worry about. He had a few buckets set out on his balcony to collect rainwater. Although Bill kept a formidable supply of bottled water, he knew that it would one day run out. Nothing wrong with stocking up now.

The buckets filled up slowly. Bill went back inside to the dry safety of his apartment. With most of the furniture barricading the door, his living room was mostly bare, save for a small wooden chair and a coffee table. Lying on the table was the M4A1 carbine that Bill had taken from a dead soldier. During the past several hours he had disassembled it, cleaned it and put it back together. Although he disapproved of the accessory rails and fancy electronics, he was happy to see that the internals were just like the weapons of old.

Unfortunately, Bill only had six shots left in the M4. During the chaos, he did not have time to grab extra ammunition. While he had sufficient ammunition for his pistol, it wasn't quite the same as being able to make a long shot and drop an enemy with two shots to the chest, one through the head.

He looked outside the window. The rain continued on relentlessly. He noticed movement outside, but it was only a zombie. Bill wanted to kill the thing. He even had his rifle at the ready – the holographic weapon sight was centered on the zombie's head. From this distance, he wouldn't even need to control his breathing. Bill's thumb flicked the safety of his rifle off. A few seconds later, he sighed and walked away from the window. No sense in wasting ammo and drawing attention.

After some time, he began to feel hungry. Bill went to his survival kit and saw that there were still plenty of nonperishable food items. He chose a Campbell's chicken noodle soup and used a Ka-bar knife to open the can. Bill didn't even bother with a spoon; he drank the soup from the can as if it were a cup. It was certainly not as palatable when cold – but Bill had lived through Vietnam on military rations. Cold soup was delicious.

Even so, it did little to boost his morale. Although he considered himself a loner, Bill was getting extremely bored. There was no power to his apartment anymore, so he couldn't watch TV. Bill kept no books, preferring to go the library if he ever wanted to read. Already, boredom was getting to him. He had lost track of how much time had passed, but it had to have been several days, at least.

He tried to sleep, but the incessant pattering of rain outside prevented him from doing so. The sound of rain was too familiar, invoking memories of lying awake for long hours while in the jungle, knowing that the enemy could come from anywhere. Bullets and guns weren't all the threats either. The depths of the jungle held things far worse – biting insects the size of a man's thumb, poisonous plants and horrendous diseases: everything from pneumonia to gruesome, flesh eating bacteria.

Bill sat in the wooden chair with the M4 across his lap, waiting for nothing in particular. Surely, the rain would eventually stop and he would be able to go outside and find more ammunition. He could also go raid the library for books – it was only a few blocks away. As far as he could tell, zombies only appeared in large numbers at night. Where they went in the meantime, he had no idea. Perhaps they were like vampires and preferred dark, cool places. They would likely seek refuge in sewers and closets until the sun came down. The night was theirs then.

A series of gunshots shattered the sound of rain. Bill's eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet, chambering a round into his rifle. He crept to the window and looked around, checking to see where the shots had come from. From his vantage point he could see an intersection with some overturned cars. Bodies lay everywhere, bloating with gas and absorbed water.

Almost immediately, a man sprinted into view – he was African American, and wearing, of all things, a suit with a tie. Bill watched as the man vaulted over an overturned vehicle. He took cover behind it and reloaded a pistol.

On one side of the intersection, a pair of hooligans approached, whooping wildly and spraying the area with automatic gunfire. Bill saw one with two handguns, one in each hand. The other one carried an Uzi.

"Come on out, darkie, so we can fuck you up!" said the one with the Uzi. He sprayed some more towards the car – the black man cringed, unwilling to poke his head out of cover and fire back.

"Yeehaw!" the other hooligan concurred, firing one of his pistols wildly into the air.

"I'm telling you, I have nothing on me! Please, just let me go!" the man pleaded from behind the car.

"I have nothing on me!" the hooligan with the Uzi mocked. "Come on out and we'll see about that!"

"No way, man, you're just going to kill me! Here, take this!" The man behind the car threw his wallet towards the hooligans. "Now go, please! There's zombies out here!"

"We're still going to kill you!" shouted the pistol carrying man with glee. "We've got all day!"

_Not for long, you don't_, Bill thought as he lined up the sights of his M4 over the hooligan's head. He exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. The M4 fired, sending a rifle bullet speeding into the man's head at nearly three thousand feet per second. Bill saw his head jerk sideways, accompanied by a red spray and a few chunks. He was already acquiring his second target. At the same time, the man pinned down behind the car jumped up and fired his own pistol several times. The hooligan dropped to his knees, for his legs had been shot out. Bill centered the sights upon his head and fired. The satisfying spray of gore confirmed the kill. He watched through his sights as the black man ran forward, grabbing the Uzi and the ammunition.

Down in the street, he looked around, wondering where the shots had come from. Bill decided to call first.

"Hey! You down there!" The man jumped, turned around and saw Bill.

"Was that you? Thanks, man!"

"Not a problem, now get your ass out of the rain. I've got provisions to last us a long time."

"Thanks!" said the black man again. He began moving towards the apartment – meanwhile, Bill went to remove the barricade from the door. He went out into the stairwell and saw the other guy, soaking wet, ascend.

"Come in, hurry," said Bill. He shut the door behind them and handed him a towel. "What's your name, son?"

"Louis Barker. And you, sir?"

"Just call me Bill." He went back to work on fixing his barricade. As he worked, Louis noticed a scabbed over bite mark on his arm.

"Uh…Bill…that bite…"

"Yeah, well, I haven't turned yet, so it looks like I'm immune."

"Oh. Me too, I guess."

"Oh really? Were you bitten?"

"No, some saliva got in my mouth."

"And how did you manage _that_?" asked Bill incredulously. "You didn't get gay with a zombie?"

"No!" Louis exclaimed angrily. "It was spitting everywhere, I had my mouth open at the time because I was shouting at my friend to get away…never mind." Bill laughed heartily.

"I'm just messing with you," he said. "Come on, help yourself to some food. There's plenty of it."

"Damn, that's the best thing I heard all day. I'm starving."

"You certainly look it," Bill remarked. Louis definitely looked a little worse for wear. The toes of his expensive shoes had nearly worn through, and a bloodstain marred his muddy slacks. His shirt was white, but several days or more (Bill no longer knew) of living hard had turned it yellow. He had been wearing a tie, but it had loosened and hung limply in a halfhearted tie shape. Right now, Louis was hungrily digging into a can of soup like a starving beggar. The transformation from businessman or office worker to struggling survivor must have been harsh.

"So, Louis, why the suit? You weren't on your way to negotiate with the zombies, were you?"

Louis was somewhere in between swallowing a large spoonful of soup and laughing. Unsure of what to do, his body compromised and some of it went into his larynx. He coughed and sputtered violently – were it not for his dark skin tone, Bill was sure that he would have turned purple. He slapped Louis on the back to aid with his coughing. A minute later, Louis was able to speak.

"Damn, man, you gotta watch the jokes when I'm eating. But no, I was on my way out of work."

"Oh. Right when you're looking forward to going home you walk into the zombie apocalypse."

"Plus, that was going to be my last day of work! Talk about shitty luck!" He shrugged and continued to eat. With rapid efficiency he finished the can and set it aside. Louis wiped his mouth and looked at Bill. "And how did you end up here?"

"This is my home," Bill answered simply. "Not much, but it's cheap and warm when it needs to be."

"I think it's a wonderful place," said Louis. "Well, for one person. You got a wife or kids or anything?"

"Nope," said Bill. He was shocked with the trace of satisfaction in his voice. Did he really hate people that much?

"Me neither," said Louis. "Hell though. If all this hadn't happened…" He pointed to the scene outside. "I'd probably have taken some time off to live a little. Get a less stressful job, meet a girl, make some new friends, that sort of thing."

"Shit happens, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Louis agreed. "Shit happens. We just have to make the best of what we are given though." He smiled wanly.

"You seem awfully positive for a man who lost his job and all chances of a regular life."

"Well, it comes from my background. When you grow up in a poor neighborhood, around racial prejudice and all that, you feel like you can never win. And sometimes it's true. But you just have to stay positive, knowing there is a way – because if you don't, then what's the point in even trying?" Louis was quite shocked with himself; he had just made a speech.

"That's not a bad way of looking at things," said Bill. "Me, I have my own rule I live by."

"And what would that be?" asked Louis, genuinely curious.

"Shoot first."

"Oh. Well, you're still living, so it must have worked."

"Damn right it did. This world is like a jungle now. Only the strong survive, and if you're not strong, you have to be fast."

"Flight or fight," Louis said, augmenting Bill's point.

"Dead on!" Bill exclaimed. He was coming to like Louis more and more every second. Sure, he was miles different from Bill, but at the same time, there was something about Louis that reminded him of young soldiers in his glory days.

"You know, son, you look like you might have been in the service."

"Oh, not me," said Louis. "I thought about it when I was a kid though, and I even went to the recruitment office, but they wouldn't take me."

"Why not?"

"I had epilepsy as a kid. Couldn't get a waiver for that. I thought it wasn't fair; my seizures stopped by the time I was fifteen. I was even able to play video games without my medication."

"Damn shame," said Bill. "You would have done well."

"Maybe. I mean, the closest I can get is with video games, like Call of Duty 4 and Counter Strike and all that."

"Never heard of those."

"Well, no use explaining them now. Video games are done for. Hell, we don't even have TV now."

"I'm not missing it. Never used it."

"You didn't miss very much anyway." Louis' hunger seemed to have been sated by the food he had eaten. Suddenly, he frowned.

"Something wrong?" asked Bill.

"Listen!" Bill listened – even at his old age, his hearing was top notch. In the distance he could hear the sounds of an approaching horde: an ominous shrieking mixed with rapid footfalls.

"Shit," said Bill, rushing to the window and grabbing his M4, which now carried only four rounds. At least Louis' Uzi was full, and he was even carrying some extra magazines. "They must have heard the firefight from earlier."

"Well, shit. Now what?"

"Cover us, I'll grab what I can. We're getting out of here."

"Oh shit…shit…shit! There they are!" Louis frantically pointed, but Bill waved him off.

"Then shoot the damn things, for the love of Christ!"

Louis opened fire without even aiming, despite what he had learned in Call of Duty 4 – the Uzi was harder to control in automatic fire than he anticipated, and his first few shots went wild. Soon, the bolt clicked on an empty chamber. Louis looked at his weapon, then at the horde. It was huge, at least seventy zombies strong. There were zombies of all shapes and sizes: big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones, and everything in between. The rain still poured, washing blood and pus off their disgusting bodies. Even from here, he could smell the meaty stench.

"Goddamn it Louis, you pack, I'll shoot!" Bill snatched the Uzi away from Louis, loaded a magazine and began firing into the crowd with controlled bursts. Wasting no time, Louis went to the table where Bill had been packing supplies into a knapsack. He carelessly threw everything he could into there: a few bottles of water, some food, a first aid kit…

"That's it, I can't fit any more!"

"Then let's go," said Bill. "Come on, out the fire escape." By now, the horde had made it to the front door of Bill's apartment – they were clawing their way in, screeching madly.

The two men were immediately drenched in pouring rain, but adrenaline and fear ensured that they felt warm. They were on the ladder when Louis realized something.

"Shit, my handgun!"

"Just leave it!" Bill commanded, but it was too late: Louis jumped back into the apartment, grabbed his trusty PX4 Storm and ran back out. He scrabbled down the fire escape ladder, meeting with Bill on the ground. No words were exchanged: they simply took off running down the drenched street.

Most of the infected were still in Bill's apartment, no doubt tearing the place down. A few of them had noticed the escaped occupants and broke away from the group to give chase. Though Bill and Louis had gotten a good hundred feet of a head start, the zombies covered this distance in seemingly an instant. Bill was forced to raise his M4 and fire. Two shots, center mass, just like he'd been taught. He embellished it with a headshot – but now that only left him a single round. Another zombie charged: Bill fired, but his shot went awry and the bolt locked back on the M4. He waited until it was right up in his face and jammed the telescoping stock of the M4 home into the face of a zombie. Bill saw the face collapse ludicrously with a hideous crunching sound.

"Nice!" shouted Louis, who had taken command of the Uzi. He was firing in short bursts now – a few of his shots still missed, but at least he was doing some damage now. Their retreat was a slow one. Louis fired a short burst into whatever zombie charged – those that didn't fall immediately were destroyed with a brutal blow from Bill's empty rifle.

"Any ideas, Louis?" Bill said, his eyes scanning left and right.

"Nope, and this is the last mag, so you better think of something quick!" One of the infected made a soaring leap for Bill with claws extended – not a normal zombie. But that didn't matter for long; Louis' aim was true and the leaping zombie twitched like a marionette doll and hit the ground with a wet smack.

"Into that basement!" said Bill, pointing. He dashed forward, followed closely by Louis. The zombies continued to give chase, jeering in their gibberish. Louis was first in through the metal door, followed closely by Louis. They pushed on the door until it was closed – it was dark inside, but there was enough light through a crack under the door that Bill could see what he was doing. With lighting efficiency he began to field strip his M4.

"The hell are you doing!" Louis demanded, bracing the door with his shoulder. His bald head shone like a beacon with exertion.

"Jamming the door," replied Bill. He took the rifle's upper receiver and shoved it through the metal handles. Louis stepped back with his Uzi ready – but no zombies came through. They continued to angrily shriek as they pounded the door, but for now, it would hold. "Come on, Louis, let's go!" Bill grabbed the Uzi while Louis switched to the smaller (but more familiar) PX4 Storm. Their eyes were finally adjusting to the dark – they were in some sort of old factory. Eventually, the monsters outside gave up. The pounding on the door ceased, and an eerie silence overtook the place once more.

"What do we do know?" Louis whispered. Even though his voice was hushed, it seemed unnaturally loud.

"We stay here for a minute…and I'll think of something." Sooner or later, something might find them down in the dark. If that occurred, there would be no escape. They had to come up with a way to get to safety, and quickly.

"We could start with looking at our gear," Louis suggested, holding out the backpack he had packed earlier.

"Good idea, son," said Bill.


	8. Bad Company

**08: Bad Company**

Inevitably, the pouring rain had stopped, and Francis was finally able to cautiously poke a head outside of the shed, flanked by Zoey. She looked small and pitiful next to him without a weapon. So today, the mission would be to find her a gun.

"It's clear," said Francis, stepping out into the refreshingly cool air outside. The smell of rain was still clinging to the air, and the rain clouds were now replaced with hazy smog, no doubt caused by distant fires. The entire place was doused in a yellowish aura. It wasn't a happy, sunny yellow, but a bitter, industrial yellow, tinted with brown like the atmosphere of Venus.

As Francis walked around the shed, he noticed several dull indentations in the ground. Perhaps that was the mysterious large entity that had been outside…yesterday? The day before? He had forgotten to even keep track of time. Perhaps it didn't matter anyway. Francis declined to show Zoey the indentations that were likely footprints. He simply started up the motorcycle he had commandeered earlier and revved up the engine.

"All right, babe, saddle up. We're going for a ride."

"Will you please not call me 'babe' or 'doll' or 'honey' or any chauvinistic shit like that, please?" said Zoey with plenty of exasperation in her voice. "It's really annoying. I'm nineteen years old."

"Whatever, kid." Zoey's retort was drowned by the roar of the motorcycle. Francis yawned disinterestedly. Eventually, Zoey finished her angry rebuttal. She lifted herself onto the motorcycle – Francis gazed a second at Zoey's legs, covered tightly with blue denim. Damn, she was a fine woman. The fact that he was nearly twice her age didn't bother him at all. Nineteen was legal, and with the collapse of the social order like this, so was everything else. Francis thought about that for a second: he could have his way with any girl of any age. He decided that any younger than fifteen would be off limits. But fifteen and up, now that was fair game. Francis pictured himself fucking a girl in a school uniform. The image amused him, and he laughed as he sped the motorcycle away.

They continued without talking for a few minutes. It wasn't even worth talking anyway, for the motorcycle was louder than the apocalypse. Whoever had owned it had customized it dramatically. Thus, they were making excellent progress towards downtown Fairfield, although it had taken a minute for Zoey to wonder why they were going there in the first place. Hadn't they just escaped from there?

Eventually, Francis halted the bike, stopping in a field of carnage. There were body parts from multiple people strewn about – limbs, torsos, and even a few heads. The entire place reeked with the coppery smell of blood.

"Ugh," Zoey groaned, voicing her disgust. "Do we really have to stop here?"

"I'm getting you a gun," said Francis. He bent down, seemingly oblivious to the smell, and picked up a leg. It had definitely been a soldier's, judging by the tattered shreds of uniform the clung to the flesh. On the thigh there was a holster; in it was a pistol. Francis removed the pistol, checked it, and handed it to Zoey. "Merry Christmas."

Zoey held the gun in her hand – it was heavy, but then again, what did she know? She had never held a gun in her life. Furthermore this was a military weapon, meaning it probably fired lasers and could shoot a billion and ten times before needing to be reloaded. She stared quizzically at Francis.

"I don't know how to use this," said Zoey. Francis rolled his eyes.

"The hell they teach you in college anyway?" He snatched the gun back and unloaded it so he could safely demonstrate it to Zoey.

She was relieved to find out that the operation wasn't complex at all – load the cartridges into the magazine, put the magazine into the gun (bullets forward, of course), unlock the slide and let it go forward. Then shoot. She figured that aiming would be easy enough, especially with the three white dots that adorned the front and rear sights.

As if to test her theory, there came a rustling in the bushes, followed by an unholy wail. Zoey swiveled around towards the noise and saw it coming: a lanky specimen with its scalp hanging loosely off the side of its head, exposing the dome of the skull. The pistol in Zoey's hands was loaded, but decocked – Francis had taught her how to put it in double action mode so she could carry it safely with less fear of accidental discharge. Zoey raised the pistol, aiming at the largest part of the zombie's body; the torso. She pulled the trigger, but the double action trigger had more resistance than she had anticipated. Her shot went wild, missing the torso and instead nailing the zombie right between the eyes. It fell forward soundlessly save for a wet thump.

"Nice shot," Francis commented with about as much emotion as someone pouring a glass of water. He had a handful of extra magazines for the pistol that Zoey now held. "Stuff these in your pockets, you might need them."

"Sure." Zoey did so. "Also, why the hell are we going back?"

"Well," said Francis, starting up the bike. "I saw a helicopter flying around a while back. I'm going to it. You're welcome to come with."

"A helicopter? Count me in," said Zoey, jumping on the bike behind Francis. "It sure beats walking out of here."

They continued to speed towards the city center. A few small suburbs gave way to large apartment complexes and finally, they were in the less-than-wealthy district of Fairfield. In a better time, this area never was the epitome of beautiful. The buildings were either gray or dark grey, and the streets were often littered with trash. This drab locale was marred only with the blood in the streets, flowing from seemingly hundreds of bodies that were festering in the elements.

"Ew," Zoey remarked. Up until the outbreak hit full swing, Zoey had never seen someone die. Her sheltered American girl's life was one of happiness and ease. There was no risk of anything. She thought about it and figured that, despite the circumstances, she had endured pretty well. Thus far she hadn't lost her mind or killed herself to avoid the nightmares that still occasionally had her waking up, screaming in terror (much to the chagrin of Francis).

Francis was no stranger to death. The intimate familiarity with violent death was a side effect of Francis' life – a life of crime and violence. Francis had never been convicted for murder. Indeed, he had never killed anyone, save for one person, after which he vowed never to kill in cold blood again. Beating a person up was okay, because more often than not, that person needed a lesson, and if no one else was going to, then Francis was perfectly willing. But killing was off limits. Unless, of course, it was a zombie. A zombie wasn't a human being, and thus, he was doing the world a favor.

Few knew about Francis' decidedly chaotic past. As a child, he was as normal as any. He was eager to learn at school and happiest when playing with his friends. To his teachers, he was a happy child living a happy life.

At home, that was an entirely different story. Francis' father was a dock worker, and a cold blooded alcoholic. Often, he would come home dead drunk and furious. His anger was always directed towards Francis in the form of beatings. But the bruises were always hidden – covered up by sweaters. Francis always went to school, bubbling and happy as usual. No teacher or school counselor had ever suspected anything – the only indications were decidedly disturbing poetry during language arts classes. No investigations had ever been done.

As Francis grew older, his father had stopped abusing him and instead, took it out on his mother. Arguably, this affected Francis even more than being beaten himself. He wanted to stand up for his mother, but years of fear of his father had made it impossible. As such, his academic performance dropped considerably – Francis found other things to keep his mind off his own inability to fight back, like skipping classes and running with gangs. Gym time was also helpful.

It took until after graduation for Francis to finally step up. He came home from work to find his mother dead on the floor, with his father idly sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a handle of whiskey. Francis knew immediately that, in one of his drunken rages, his father had murdered his mother. He focused on his father and thought about years of inability to fight.

"God damn you, dad," Francis said quietly. He crossed the room and saw that his father's pistol was lying on the table, unattended to by his inebriated father. "I'm going to kill you like you killed mom."

Francis picked up the gun and placed it into his father's hand. His father didn't object, even as Francis closed his fingers around the gun and shifted it against his head.

"Go to hell." Francis forced his father to pull the trigger, blasting brains and skull matter all over the opposing wall. Police ruled it as a murder suicide. Francis, with a meager pittance from his parents' life insurance, bought a motorcycle and took to the streets, beginning a life of petty crime. It was easier to forget when you were constantly on the run.

Francis inadvertently squeezed the handlebars of the motorbike a bit harder than he had been a second ago. The bike jerked slightly – Zoey voiced her protest with a sudden "Hey!"

As she said this, Francis saw a flurry of movement to his right. He turned and saw a large group of zombies rushing out to…do something or another to him and Zoey. Francis wasn't sure exactly what motivated them. He had seen zombies beating people and killing them, but wondered if they ever used humans for food. One of the zombies had a hand in its mouth: that confirmed it. Indeed, the zombies wanted to eat them. Fuck that, he decided. Francis wasn't going to become zombie food.

"Hang on!" he shouted over the din of the motorcycle. Zoey was now giving him the death squeeze. Francis gunned the engine, swerving expertly around bodies and empty husks of cars.

"You're going to get us killed!" Zoey shouted angrily from the back. "Slow down, they're not _that_ fast!" As she said this, one of the zombies, which had been crouching like a predatory cat, pounced and very nearly unseated the two of them from the bike. It passed over with a horrible screeching.

"The fuck was that!" Francis said angrily. Ignoring Zoey's demand, Francis accelerated away from whatever had pounced at them. He continued to pick up speed and rounded a corner dangerously fast. Francis could feel the bike responding to his input, but just this once, he miscalculated. The bike rolled over an arm and suddenly, they were spinning out of control. They hit the curb and both of them flew off, hitting the ground violently.

Francis cursed at his error and gingerly picked himself up, brushing dust out of the abrasions on his exposed arms. Zoey appeared to be mostly uninjured, though she was livid.

"What the fuck, Francis!"

"Shut up and help me kill some zombies!" Francis raised his shotgun and loosed a withering rain of buckshot into the oncoming horde. Zoey lined up the sights of her pistol and began shooting – her first few shots missed, but she readjusted and was putting bullets downrange and hitting the right amount of zombies. Although her pistol lacked the stopping power of Francis' shotgun, she was a straight shooter, aiming for the heart. Though they were zombies, these were technically alive, and without a heart, would die quickly. Those that fell proved to be useful obstacles, tripping much of the horde. Soon, all of them were either dead, or getting to their feet.

"Come on, let's go!" said Zoey, dragging Francis with her. They ran down the street, stopping only to fire back at the pursuing horde. Very soon they found themselves at a dead end. Though the first horde was mostly gone, a second one had arrived, no doubt drawn to the gunfire that had been dealing with the first. By this time, Zoey was down to her last magazine, and Francis was prepared to use his shotgun as a club when his ammo inevitably ran out.

"Shit," he said as he watched the horde approach.

"We're going to die, aren't we?" said Zoey quietly.

"I guess we are. I don't know about you, but I'm going down fighting. You with me?" Zoey had tears in her eyes – no doubt, she was afraid of death, like most people who weren't used to the concept.

"Yeah," she said after a pause. "I'm ready." Zoey turned to face the enemy – Francis could see her hands shaking, but at least she hadn't cut and run.

"I hate zombies," Francis muttered. He then raised his voice. "Come and get it!"

As he shouted, there was a loud pop accompanied by a whooshing and then, an explosion in the street, showering the area with squirming zombies and body parts. They looked up at the source of the mysterious savior and saw that it was a soldier with an antitank rocket launcher. Although it was an explosive weapon, it had proved surprisingly ineffective against a lot of the horde. The rocket launcher was strictly designed as an antitank weapon, to penetrate up to 400 millimeters of armor and explode inside.

The rest of the horde advanced, but as they did, they were instantly cut down by fan shaped storm of shrapnel from a cleverly set claymore mine that had been hidden in an alley. Zoey and Francis had barely been out of the effective kill zone. Zoey had even felt one of the ball bearings whip through her hair; Francis now had a small rip in his vest.

A squad of soldiers opened fire from the windows and doors of the buildings – it was a textbook linear ambush. The remaining zombies were quickly destroyed. A second later, the soldiers came out of their hiding spots. They were a hodgepodge mix of men (and a couple of women, which pleased Zoey) from different branches – Army, Marines and even a Navy sailor, looking out of place with his blue and gray working uniform. There were nine of them total.

"Hello," said the squad leader, one of the female Army soldiers. "Everyone all right?"

"Yeah," said Zoey. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," replied the soldier. She was a captain, by the name of Dupont. She hadn't bothered to wear a helmet; her hair was blond and her eyes a piercing shade of blue. "Anyway, you two should follow us to the shelter. There will be more of them coming within a few minutes. In case you don't know, I'm Captain Dupont."

"I'm Zoey. He's Francis."

"Nice to meet you. If it's first names, then you can call me Rachel."

"Okay," said Zoey. Captain Rachel Dupont led her squad towards a heavy metal door. Zoey and Francis followed the soldiers as they all congregated in a basement stairwell. Rachel knocked once, then three times in rapid succession. There was the sound of metal scraping and the door opened. A scared looking child stood in the doorway – she looked to be about eight.

"Thank you, Jessie," said Rachel, patting the girl on the head as she walked by. Jessie smiled broadly and saluted dramatically; Rachel returned the salute. Jessie bounded back, weaving between the soldiers. The group went further into the darkened basement, which was lit only by a couple of camping lanterns. Finally, they found themselves in a warehouse. The boxes had since been shoved to the side. There were a few refugees sitting on boxes or on sleeping bags. Zoey saw six of them in total, including Jessie the young girl. Save for Jessie, they all looked forlorn and miserable.

"It's not very comfortable," said Rachel. "But it's better than dying. We have water and food – plenty of it. This was once a storage place for various canned items, so help yourself to as much as you can eat. We're all out of sleeping bags, but I'm sure you two can make do with a couple of boxes. Sorry for that."

"I suppose you don't have any beer?" Francis asked. Rachel gave him a strange look. Francis stared back with the same cold expression on his face. Finally, the officer spoke.

"No beer. But we have wine coolers."

"You're shitting me!"

"Hey! Easy with the language, there's a kid here. But no, I've checked and there's no beer. You want alcohol, we've got wine coolers." Francis grumbled at this.

"I hate wine coolers," he declared.

"Me too," said Rachel. "We're going to run a mission tonight and grab some alcohol. If I don't get a drink soon, I'm going to kill someone." Francis' frown turned into a wide grin.

"I love a woman who can drink," he said. "Mind if I join in on the mission?"

"Just grab a weapon and you're good to go," Rachel replied. "Right now, I've got some inventory work. Squad, go ahead and pull security in buddy teams. The rest of you can stay here."

"Yes ma'am!" the soldiers replied in unison. They ran off to go to their positions, while Captain Dupont disappeared into an office. Zoey and Francis found themselves being stared at by the other refugees.

"Well…hi," said Zoey doubtfully. "Nice to meet you all." She was met with stony glares from a few of the refugees. Zoey's voice faltered. "I'll just go sit down now."

She sat against the wall and despite the discomfort it caused to her back; she was relieved to have the soreness of her legs be relieved. Francis went to the office were Rachel was working, a smitten look in his eyes. Zoey sighed and tried to fall asleep against the wall.

"Hold on a second…do I know you?" A young man's voice sounded off next to her. Zoey opened her eyes and turned to the source of the voice – she saw a person about her age with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a shit-eating grin. It was the last face that Zoey ever wanted to see.

"No, you don't," she said coldly.

"Zoey Elizabeth Higgins. 19 years old, date of birth, October 15th, 1993. Hair color: brown. Eye color, gray blue. Five feet six inches tall, and a hundred and fifteen pounds last I saw you. Your favorite animal is the penguin, you love horror movies, especially the ones with zombies, and you get your period on about the 20th of every month." Zoey fumed because all those details were true. This person had indeed known her well. She had known him well too. They both knew each other well and were willing to tell each other secrets that they wouldn't to anyone else.

"Yeah, good job, you still remember. You. Ryan James Taylor. 19 years old, date of birth, November 10th, 1993. Not very long ago. Brown hair, blue eyes, a shit-eating grin, five-ten, a hundred and sixty. You like wolves, you love being a complete shithead, and if I didn't know better, I'd almost suspect you of having a vagina."

"And you do better. You know very well."

"I do know. And my god, it's quite possibly the most unimpressive thing I've ever seen."

"Ooh, that hurts, Zoey. Big time."

"What the hell do you want?" said Zoey, glaring at Ryan. She kept her voice low so that others wouldn't hear, but at the moment, she wanted to scream.

"What do I want? I don't know, Zoey, what do you think?"

"I think that this conversation is over."

"But I think not. Come on, Zoey, think of it. We had some good times together. We were together for a whole…year and a half. And then you decided to just leave me? What gives?"

"Oh fuck, and so it begins," Zoey muttered.

"You broke my heart," Ryan said bluntly.

"Correction. You broke mine. If I remember correctly _I _found _you_ plugging some whore. The only thing I'm going to break is your face."

"I apologized and I stopped seeing her."

"Do I look like I give a fuck?"

"Come on, Zoey, what's done is done."

"Listen to yourself, Ryan," Zoey said angrily, her voice rising. Some of the people looked up from what they were doing; the girl named Jessie bounded over to see the excitement.

"Zoey, that was your biggest problem. You could never let go of the past."

"I already have, Ryan, that's why I'm done with you. I was done with you months ago. And you can shut up now. She doesn't need to hear about this." Zoey nodded towards Jessie, who was now playing with a toy dinosaur on the floor between them.

"You ruined me," replied Ryan, ignoring Zoey's request. "I got accepted into Harvard. If I had known you'd be like this, I'd have gone there instead of turning the acceptance down. I could have done better than going to some shitty state university."

"Fairfield University ranked the same as Harvard on just about everything besides law. You sure as hell weren't studying law. Maybe you should have. You'd make a great lawyer, you're a liar who thinks he can bargain his way out of anything."

"If you were going to break up with me, you could have had the courtesy to do it earlier."

"Maybe you could have had the courtesy to stay faithful. And you know something? Your fancy education means shit right now," said Zoey. By now, her anger had risen to the point that it didn't matter that young Jessie was being exposed to swearing and adult situations. "I don't give a fuck about your future. The moment you betrayed me, the moment you abused my trust was when I stopped caring. I made that clear, Ryan."

"Yet you're still here talking with me. You do care, Zoey, some part of you still wants me back. I know you, Zoey." Zoey was about to deny this and lash out with a hateful rebuke, but she closed her mouth. She hated to admit it, but Ryan was correct. Zoey had seen everything in Ryan. She had dreams of graduating college with him, getting married and starting a family. They may have been silly girl dreams fostered by illusions of love in high school – it didn't change the fact that Zoey believed in happy endings. One day she made a surprise visit to his dorm room and found him in the throes of making out with a girl from the floor below. She vividly remembered how Ryan profusely apologized, with his highly erect manhood waving ludicrously, claiming to have been taken advantage of. The girl was fully naked already and didn't seem to mind Zoey's presence. The exchange had taken approximately five seconds. Zoey ignored him and walked out. The tears came later, and always in the privacy of her dorm room when Leanne wasn't around. Day after day she wished that she could rewind time and change it all.

"That doesn't matter. I won't have you back. I'm not going to forgive you for what you did. Ryan, stay the hell out of my way. If you don't, I will kill you." She stood up, preparing to find Francis, but Ryan also stood up. He was livid.

"When shit hits the fan, Zoey, don't come crying back to me like some needy cunt, you hear?" In a quarter of a second, Zoey's Beretta pistol flew up and pressed against Ryan's teeth. He immediately stopped talking and stared cross eyed at the gun. Zoey cocked the hammer back and pressed the gun harder, forcing Ryan against the wall. By now, some of the refugees were standing up, wondering how to intervene.

"Ryan, I told you about a second ago that I was going to kill you if you got in my way. You just got in my way, Ryan. Think about it." Ryan backed against the wall, shaking in fear. A few tears came to his eyes.

"Zoey, please! I'm sorry!" It had taken only a second for Ryan to lose his tough demeanor. Now he was a scared teenager. He had survived the initial crisis, but unlike Zoey, he only ran, and never fought.

"Open your mouth, Ryan. Close your eyes and open your mouth. Pretend that this gun is actually my tongue. You liked my tongue in your mouth, didn't you?" Ryan simply shook his head. Zoey pressed the gun harder into Ryan's teeth – finally, his jaws opened and the muzzle slid into his mouth. She cocked the hammer back. "Are you ready?"

"Nu…no! Huh-lease!" Ryan pleaded. Zoey took the gun out of Ryan's mouth. Suddenly, the room smelled of urine – it leaked out through his jeans and soaked Zoey's shoes.

"Goddamn it, Ryan," said Zoey, and she pressed him back against the wall again. "You just have no respect for anyone." She shoved the gun under his chin, and leaned close – so close, that from an angle it looked like two lovers about to kiss. But Zoey knew better, there would be no kissing – for him, this was the end. A few of the refugees were approaching, hands up, quietly pleading with Zoey to back off.

"You don't want to do this," said Ryan.

"Wrong. I do." Zoey pulled the trigger – and in the silence of the room, the hammer fell forward and hit the firing pin, which clicked quietly on an empty chamber. Ryan screamed like a girl and Zoey let him go. He slid to the floor – this time, the smell of defecation filled the room. Ryan took a second to realize that he was still alive, and he scrabbled away, leaving a disgusting trail of waste on the floor.

"You bitch!" he screamed. "You fucking bitch!"

"Next time, it'll be loaded. Get the fuck out of my sight you pathetic prick."

At this moment, she was roughly grabbed by the other refugees and forced into a chair. All of Zoey's vision was an angry tunnel, focused purely on Ryan. She couldn't even see the other refugees' faces.

"Christ, give the kid a break! We're all struggling to survive here!"

"What do you think you are, tough?"

"In front of my Jessie! How dare you!" Someone slapped Zoey hard across the face – she felt her nose begin to bleed.

"What the hell is going on here?" Rachel Dupont had returned with Francis at her side. Her right hand was touching the sidearm on her thigh holster.

"She tried to kill me!" Ryan moaned. "Throw her out, she's a danger to us all!"

"Quit acting like a goddamn pussy and clean up your shit," Rachel said coldly. "Zoey, do you mind telling?"

"It's a bit of a private matter," she said simply, before spitting out a gob of blood that had gone into her mouth. "I can't stand the clingy types, especially the ones who fuck with you and expect to be forgiven a few months later. You know what I mean?" A look of understanding came to Rachel's face. She nodded and looked down with contempt at Ryan.

"Let her go for now," she ordered. "Give her some tissues for her nose. Is it broken?" Zoey shook her head. Rachel seemed satisfied and turned back to Ryan.

"You. Evidently you enjoy stirring up your personal problems during this mission. I'm going to let you off just this once. Now, I don't care how much you wish she'll take you back, but as I'm sure she told you, your wish is not getting granted. You might as well accept that life is going to be a bit different from now on. She is a member of this team now, and you will treat her with due respect. If you can't handle that, then leave. If you won't willingly leave, then I will personally throw you out into the street as bait. Now, Ryan, are you willing to grow up and act like a man?"

"Yeah, whatever," Ryan said angrily, turning maroon in the face. Rachel grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a shelf.

"That's no way to address a superior officer, kid. Yes, what?"

"I'm not even in your fucking military," said Ryan. "You could get arrested for abusing civilians."

"Mr. Taylor. A couple weeks ago, the world as we knew it ended. There is no more organized police, no JAG Corps, no politicians to save your scrawny ass. If you want to run with me, you are under my command. I'm giving you a choice." She backed off and pointed to the door. "We're waiting." Ryan didn't move and muttered something incoherent.

"What's that?"

"I'll stay," he said.

"Good. So you'll be a team player from here on out?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now clean up your shit and get out of my sight." Ryan slinked off into the shadows to find cleaning supplies. Meanwhile, Francis found himself ogling at Captain Dupont.

"Damn…you really know how to lay down the law!" Francis was genuinely impressed.

"I can be loud when I want to be," replied Rachel. Francis grinned slightly as he thought of this statement and its potentially inappropriate connotations.

"Well, it's keeping us alive. Thanks for saving our asses."

"Not a problem," said Rachel. "What kind of alcohol do you want for tonight?"


	9. First Mutation

_Author's note: So, I finally decided to stop being a lazy poo, and have decided to put in author's notes where I feel they are necessary. This one is just an affirmation of that change. Also, I hope this chapter is to your liking: I have been up at odd hours finishing this, so it may not be the best ever written. I also apologize for the unusually long time I took to update. Now that I'm actually far enough into the story where I'm about to hit the campaigns, things should be faster. As always, please read, review and check back often for updates. Enjoy the latest chapter._

_Best wishes, Lardcake212  
_

**09: First Mutation**

The darkened interior of the old factory had proven to be a remarkably useful place to hide. Bill and Louis had hidden in a corner for hours, barely daring to even breathe, listening for any sound. But eventually, the noises outside had stopped. In its place, an eerie silence overtook the environment. It should have been peaceful, but it only proved to be disturbing and quietly terrifying.

They had been hiding in the factory for quite some time now, but none of them reliably knew how much time had passed. Louis had been wearing a watch, but it had stopped after getting smashed against the wall while running. It was no longer useful, but he kept it on anyway. The watch had been a gift from his family after graduating high school. It had cost quite a lot – more than his family could easily afford at the time. His younger siblings had even given up their tiny allowances to get him the watch. They all had high hopes for them, that he would become a successful man.

In fact, that watch was now the only tangible remainder of his family now. In his heart, he knew that there was no way they could have survived. The one photograph he had kept with him was now irreparably damaged.

He was good at hiding his emotions and keeping them in check. Louis was sad, devastated even, but under no circumstances would he allow it to impair his own ability to survive. If he was to be successful in this changed world, he would have to survive.

"We can't stay here too long," said Bill quietly. He had begun smoking a cigarette. In the darkness of the factory, it seemed unnaturally bright, like a beacon for zombies. But there were none in there.

"Well, when do you want to move out? Hell, do we even know what time it is?"

"Might as well head out and check," said Bill. He picked up the Uzi he had borrowed from Louis and went slowly towards the door. Louis followed with his .40 caliber Beretta. Bill took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Bright sunlight assailed their eyes, temporarily blinding them.

"Damn it!" Louis said irritably, looking away, blinking the purple spots out of his vision. A second later, the light disappeared, as if something big had jumped in front of it. Louis couldn't see clearly, but he could hear: something large had jumped into the threshold. He heard Bill curse loudly and felt himself being dragged back into the warehouse. Above Bill's shouting, Louis heard a gargantuan belch – one that could not have been produced by anything less than obesity itself. The last time he had heard a burp of such intensity, he had been at a frat party in college, cheering on a champion drinker.

"Get away from that thing!"

Louis finally saw it clearly. It was another zombie, judging by the gray skin color and open wounds with festering pus, but bloated like a balloon. The T-shirt that the thing had been wearing was grotesquely stretched over a voluminous belly that seemed to be reaching the limit of the skin's elasticity. At this time, Louis smelled something horrible – a hodgepodge mix of bad breath, decay and fecal matter. He coughed involuntarily. He tripped on a piece of scrap metal that was sitting on the floor. Louis fell forward. As he did, he heard a couple of gunshots from the Uzi.

The sound of the submachine gun firing was like a series of loud puncture noises, amplified in the crowded confines of the empty, darkened storage room. However, it was nothing compared to the next sound: a colossal, wet explosion. Louis was knocked down by the force of the blast – for a wild second he wondered if Bill had accidentally shot something volatile.

"Keep moving!" Bill's voice seemed muffled, but Louis understood the urgency of the situation. He stood up and followed Bill further until they reached an exit. They threw open the door and exited towards the street. Louis, looking back, saw a fat pair of legs and pieces of mangled flesh strewn all over the room.

_Shit, man_, he thought. _What the hell was that thing?_

They had made it into an abandoned music store, which was blessedly free of zombies. So was the street outside: even so, Bill rolled a few guitar amp stacks towards the front of the store, creating a ramshackle barricade.

"Well," said Bill. "We made it through that." It was late in the evening now.

"Did you get a good luck at that thing?" asked Louis.

"Straight down to business, huh? As a matter of fact, I did. Like a walking water balloon."

"Why was he like that though? I didn't see any others like that…"

"Maybe he just had a bad case of gas. Christ, the smell."

"That's a hell of a lot of gas for a zombie."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you," said Bill. "We'll just stay away from them." Bill sat down on a smaller guitar amplifier while Louis took a small stool for drummers. Both of them eyed the merchandise in the shop for a few seconds. Louis stood up to stretch his tired body briefly before turning around to admire the bass guitars that sat on the wall.

"I know the stereotype and all, but if the zombies hadn't come around, I'd have wanted to learn bass." He took one down from the wall and sat down, idly plucking the unamplified strings. Louis had no idea how to play bass, but he had been to enough blues and jazz concerts to know what playing it looked like. If it were plugged in, he was sure that the sound would be dreadful.

"What stereotype?" asked Bill.

"You know, the stereotype that black people have rhythm and white people don't?"

"I don't know it." Bill looked slightly confused.

"Never mind. I guess not learning the bass is going on my 'regrets' list now." Louis wistfully placed the instrument back on the wall hanger from whence it came.

Indeed, everyone had regrets. There were plenty of things they should have done, but hadn't had the time to do so. Unfinished home improvement, grocery shopping, going to the movies with friends…in an earlier time, it was comparatively easy to say "I'm too busy for this" or "I don't have time." Thus, no one ever got any important things done. Now the tables had turned: and in a world where there were no more commitments to do anything, one could theoretically go do everything. Of course, the zombies presented a problem.

They were running out of water by now. Although they still had a few cans of food and enough ammo to perhaps dispatch a single zombie, dehydration was a big killer. A person can last maybe three weeks without food. But without water, he will die within three days.

Bill was the first out of the music store, the folding stock of the Uzi extended and pressed into his shoulder. The street was clear. Louis followed him out. There was a gas station at the end of the street – surely, there would be some water there. The two of them advanced slowly, barely daring to breathe. There was something disturbing about the quietness.

A door on a nearby building burst open violently – standing in the threshold was another grotesquely mutated, obese zombie. In the light, every detail of the creature was clear. Like the previous one from the warehouse it was gray. Parts of its skin were raw and festering, being eaten slowly by maggots and dripping out liquid rot. It belched and made a beeline for the two survivors, arms flailing ludicrously.

"Louis, you take this one!" Bill ordered. Louis didn't waste a second; he raised his pistol and centered the sights of his Beretta over the stomach of the beast, which was quivering like lump of gelatin. The creature burped again but was quickly interrupted as the entire upper body simply disappeared, leaving only the legs and head. Louis watched in both fascination and disgust as the head flew up thirty feet into the air, its jaws gnashing like an insect, and came back down hard, splattering on the pavement. The lower half of the volatile zombie's body simply rolled around in a horrible pile of gore.

"That's no normal zombie!" he remarked. "What's happening to them? Do you think it's a mutation?"

"I'm no biologist," Bill mused, reaching into his pocket for cigarettes only to find that he was out of them. "But they remind me of my days back in 'Nam. A few crazies occasionally ran at us from the jungle with explosives strapped to their bodies. You had to kill them if you saw them, but if you weren't careful, you would accidentally blow them up anyway."

"Suicide bombers? Like in the Middle East?"

"Yes, but some of the boys called them 'boomers.'"

"Boomers?"

"Yep. Boomers. Once you heard someone shout boomer, you know you were in trouble. The boomers would kill you once they got close and blew themselves up. But if you shot them too close, you would blow them up and kill yourself. If you were lucky, you could bayonet them before they could flip the switch."

"Shit, man, that's terrible!"

"We lost a lot of good men to those boomers," said Bill. He eyed the half-carcass on the ground. "At least these guys don't have bombs."

They entered the gas station and found a few bottles of water and even a pack of cigarettes for Bill. He lit one almost immediately. Bill's expression was one of peace as he puffed happily on the tobacco.

"I suppose you're not a smoker?"

"Not anymore. I quit a while ago. But can I bum one anyway?"

Bill held out the pack and Louis extracted a single cigarette. Instead of lighting it up, though, he placed it into his shirt pocket.

"Just in case," he explained to Bill. "We should keep moving."

They went outside the gas station and continued along the street, when suddenly, Louis noticed something. He pointed to the sky with a grin on his face.

"Bill, look! A helicopter!" Bill squinted, following Louis' finger. His eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be, but he could just faintly make out the distinctive silhouette against the darkening sky.

"Son of a bitch!" said Bill through the cigarette. "We should get to high ground, catch their attention."

No sooner had they gone thirty feet when a series of rapid gunshots pierced the evening air. Louis felt the rounds pass around him. He yelped and dove to the ground with the practiced movement of one who had spent many childhood years dealing with intermittent gang violence. Bill went for an alleyway.

A series of floodlights turned on, bathing the entire area in glaringly bright light. Louis blinked profusely, dazzled by the brightness. In his haste to hit the dirt, he had dropped his Beretta pistol. He couldn't see where Bill was, and he was conscious of many pairs of boots hitting the ground and people advancing on him.

"Stay still, don't move!" someone ordered him. Louis was all too willing to comply – he rested his chin on the pavement and spread his limbs out. A second later, he heard shouting.

"What the hell were you thinking? If it talks, it's human, so you don't shoot!" an angry female voice.

"Well sorry, I was just trying to help!" a male voice retorted. "Excuse me if I couldn't see clearly!"

"You stay the fuck right here." A second later, Louis heard footsteps and he saw someone running his way – from what he could see, the person was wearing the digital camouflage uniform of the US Army.

"It's all right, you can stand up now. Are you injured?" Louis stood up and checked himself – to his surprise, the side of his abdomen was bleeding slightly. He hadn't noticed it until now.

"Just a graze, I think," said Louis. "I'll be okay."

"You were lucky." Louis' eyes had finally adjusted to the sudden influx of bright light. He saw that he was talking to a pretty woman in combat gear. The name tape on her uniform read "Dupont." She was a captain.

"Well, I'm glad that whoever fired was a bad shot."

"Now I know to keep him off of guard duty. He's some kid named Ryan. A bit of a loose cannon. He escaped the infected by hiding in a dumpster near the university, that's where we picked him up. What's your name?"

"I'm Louis Barker."

"Captain Rachel Dupont. Just call me Rachel, there's no more military presence left out here. It's just me and a few others, plus a bunch of refugees. You and your friend should join us."

"I think we might just have to," said Louis, smiling.

"Come on inside with me, there's food, water and drinks. Earlier we made a quick haul from a liquor store."

"Is getting drunk a good idea in these times?" asked Louis. He followed Rachel as she led him to a steel door.

"Well, no. But on the other hand, it's the apocalypse, and we might as well have some semblance of normalcy. Besides, we're not getting drunk. Just having some drinks to keep morale up."

They went inside the building, which was dimly lit by lanterns. Rachel led him to a storage room where a bunch of civilian refugees were sitting idly. Bill soon joined them.

"Rest up here," said Rachel. "Don't worry, we'll keep this place safe." She went back outside to her position.

"I have cigarettes…and there's some Jack's. I must be in heaven," remarked Bill, holding up a bottle of whiskey.

"You don't want to drink too much," Louis warned. "We might have to fight later. Don't drink and fight."

"A little bit won't kill me. Give an old man a break." Bill grinned broadly as he opened up the bottle and took a gulp. He grimaced slightly. "Haven't had this for a while."

Louis sighed and sat down on a crate. He wanted to clean his pistol, but in the dim light and without a cleaning kit, it wasn't worth it. With nothing better to do, he looked around at the various people around him. He saw a sleeping man wearing an outfit well suited for a biker, a pretty young brunette who was dozing against the wall, a child playing with a pair of plastic dinosaur figurines, a couple of old men, two younger men still wearing department store employee uniforms, an exasperated looking woman who appeared to be the child's mother, and last of all, a surly looking young man.

_Interesting group here_, Louis thought.

"Hey you, quit staring at me you clown!" Louis snapped out of his thoughts and found the young man glaring at him.

"I wasn't staring," said Louis plainly. "Just looking around to see what other people are here."

"Whatever. Just don't fucking stare." Louis could understand that people would be angry, but he was still irked by this young man's rudeness.

"Hey man, chill! You got a problem or something?"

"Fuck off, asshole, I'm done talking," said the young man cantankerously. Louis stood up.

"I know it's the zombie apocalypse, but seriously, you should lighten up!" The angry young man also stood up, knocking over a crate. His look was one of pure venom. He approached Louis angrily. Louis prepared himself, but held out his hands to calm the man down.

"Okay, that's enough!" This time, it was not Louis, but the pretty young brunette who was speaking. She had woken up and placed herself in between the two men, holding out her arms and glaring at the younger one. "Ryan, sit down."

The man called Ryan opened up his mouth to speak, but the girl's look told him he'd best shut up. He contemptuously left the room. Louis could hear him cursing bitterly, and distinctly heard the phrase "fucking cunt" as Ryan passed by. He turned back to the brunette, who was looking extremely pissed.

"So that was Ryan, huh?"

"Yep. Biggest douche bag in the universe."

"I agree, he almost shot me." Louis pointed to the graze wound on his side, which had stopped bleeding.

"Ew, nasty," remarked the girl. "He was my boyfriend for a while, and then I caught him in bed with some slut. Now he wants forgiveness."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm sorry I ever met him." She sat down on a crate next to Louis. "What's your name?"

"Louis. Louis Barker."

"Zoey Higgins. It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," said Louis. "How'd you end up here?"

"Well…I was at the university, hiding in my dorm room, starving to death. So I left my room to go find some food when I got ambushed by zombies, ran outside and realized I was going to die before that guy rescued me," said Zoey with machine gun delivery. She pointed to the sleeping biker. "I stayed with him for a while, and then he saw a helicopter flying over Fairfield, so we sped there, crashed and walked into a military ambush that took out the zombies. And here we are."

"Oh. My friend Bill and I were just looking for some water."

"Bill's the one drinking?"

"Yep."

"I can't say I blame him. If I were that old, I'd just drink myself to death." She sighed and brushed some hair out of her eyes.

"He's old, but he's a fighter. He could kick my ass."

"Either he's a beast or you're a wimp," said Zoey, grinning. She punched him lightly on the arm. "Glad to have you here though."

"Thanks," said Louis. "It's always good to feel welcomed." He couldn't help but grin like an idiot – here in relative safety, with friendly people; he had the urge to laugh with joy. He was about to answer when the door to the warehouse burst open – it was one of the soldiers under Captain Dupont's command, looking panicked. Everyone looked up in fright.

"Sorry to break up the party, but, we have to leave. Right now."

"Why? What's going on?" asked the woman with the child.

"Big horde. Huge, I'm talking in the hundreds. We're getting the hell out, so drop everything except weapons and go out the back door! Move!" Everyone in the room sprang into action, including Bill, who tossed aside the Jack's with a disgruntled curse and picked up his Uzi with its whopping fewer-than-ten shots in the magazine.

Zoey and Louis followed the rest of the crowd through a hallway. They were soon back on the street, where a few of the other soldiers were already in position. By now, the first of the gunfire had started. On the opposite end of the building, two soldiers manning machine guns were mowing down the horde. Captain Dupont was the last out the door, looking visibly flustered.

"Okay, let's move. Everyone, stick together. Evans, Randleman and Riley, cover the left. The rest of you take the right side, I'll take point. Tanner and Ling should be regrouping with us now." A second later, the two aforementioned soldiers rejoined the main group. The one named Ling, a Marine, gave a brief report to Captain Dupont.

"We managed to slow them down, but there's too many of them. Captain, whenever you're ready, let's go."

"Okay, thanks Ling," said the officer. "Group, move out!" They took off, moving as quickly as possible. The two old men could not run, so the group had to adjust to the speed of the slowest person. It was a harrowing task, but Rachel had made it clear: no one left behind.

Louis was swearing profusely. His Beretta had only ten rounds left – hardly enough to hold back a horde. He bumped into the biker.

"Hey, be calm, friend!" he said. "I'm Francis."

"I'm Louis."

"Nice to meet you. Here they come, by the way." Louis looked to where Francis was pointing and saw a massive horde. He could only wonder what had drawn them here in the first place. At the sight of this, the crowd began to run faster. Even the old men made a valiant effort. The gunfire started – people screamed and the little girl began to cry. There was a scream of terror and suddenly, the Marine named Ling was yanked from the ground – wrapped around his body was what appeared to be a long, slimy tentacle. Ling had a Ka-Bar knife out and was desperately hacking at the tentacle, but seconds later, he was quickly descended upon by a group of zombies. His screams were clearly audible over the gunfire.

"Keep moving!" Captain Dupont shouted. From what she could see, the only zombies were the ones behind the group. Seeing this, she shouted more commands – those soldiers at the flanks reorganized and formed a solid wall between the civilians and the zombies. Together, they put down a devastating barrage of gunfire that disabled the first line of zombies and caused the others to trip a squirming mass. The Navy sailor among the group produced a strange looking grenade from his vest.

"Flash out, everyone look away!" A second later, there was a colossal BOOM accompanied by a flash that turned night into day for half a second.

Louis' ears were ringing, but he knew what had been thrown, courtesy of long hours of Call of Duty 4. The soldiers had thrown a flashbang grenade – unlike a normal grenade, it did not produce deadly shrapnel. What it did do was create noise so extreme that anyone close to it would be severely deafened. The light produced was so bright that if one was looking directly at it, he could be blinded.

Indeed, this proved to be an effective weapon against the infected, many of which were flailing on the ground, screeching like animals, unable to see or hear. Another grenade was thrown, this time, a conventional one. The blast took out several zombies, but still, the bulk of the crowd was unharmed and continued to make chase.

Another soldier fell out of the formation, kicking and screaming as another tentacle wrapped around his neck. It squeezed so hard that his neck broke and the soldier went limp, dead as a dinosaur. This time, everyone had seen it clearly: the tentacle was in fact a tongue, monstrously long, from the mouth of a disheveled looking zombie that was spewing clouds of toxic green smoke.

By now, all semblance of order had vanished. More and more of the soldiers were yanked out of the line to a horrible death – only Captain Rachel Dupont remained. Already, some of the civilians had been taken. The two old men were the first to go, and then the mother of the young girl. Dupont looked on the verge of tears throughout this massacre, but kept her composure and continued to provide covering fire, firing one shot per second, into the head of each zombie that came too close. She paused only to reload – during this delay, she threw a flashbang as a buffer. Soon she resorted to regular fragmentation grenades, and finally, her pistol.

Miraculously, most of the horde was gone – the remaining five civilians were firing as well with a hodgepodge mix of weapons. Ryan, Bill, Zoey, Louis and Francis. The latter four were putting up a good fight, but Ryan had stopped shooting. Instead, he glared with venom at Rachel Dupont.

There was a particularly loud gunshot and suddenly, Rachel stumbled, a hand clutched to her throat and blood gushing out from under her fingers. Her blue eyes were a horrible palette of pain, shock and sorrow. She looked back at Ryan and the smoking gun in his hands. Rachel raised her own pistol, but Ryan fired again. Rachel had not been wearing body armor, and the shot went straight through her. She stumbled from the force of the bullet, dropped to her knees and fell sideways. Rachel was dead by the time her head touched the pavement. All this had taken place in the space of three seconds: Ryan, in a maniacal rage, turned the gun on Jessie, the young eight year old girl. He fired once, and Jessie was flung backwards, a bloody hole in her forehead. Ryan felt briefly empowered by his actions. He no longer cared what happened – no one was allowed to wrong him, no one, least of all some fucking Army bitch and her sidekick the whore in the pink jacket, the one who no longer loved him back, that bitch -

" Wha – you fucking lunatic!" Zoey screamed as she saw this heinous act. Without hesitation she turned her gun on Ryan, firing twice into his chest. Ryan dropped like a stone, bleeding but still alive, with a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

"Go on and run, you bitch!" he yelled. "I'll be fucking you in hell when I see you there!" His ranting quickly disappeared as the remainder of the horde descended upon him, to be replaced with bones crunching and agonized screaming.

This distraction proved to be enough: the remaining four survivors, out of ammo and out of breath, took shelter in a small alleyway. They waited quietly until the sounds of the horde died off as they dispersed, having lost the last four members of their quarry. Louis was the first to speak.

"This…this can't be happening!" he said wistfully. Bill put out his cigarette and tossed the stub aside.

"It's happening. Shit just got real bad."

"Goddamn it…what the hell was that fucker thinking? Was getting pissed off really worth killing for? Goddamn, I hate those kinds of people. I hate zombies. Fuck!" Francis slammed a fist into the ground.

Zoey said nothing. She simply sat against the wall, head buried in her arms and resting upon her knees. Zoey didn't make a sound, but her body was shaking. Louis went over to her and put an arm around her: she relaxed slightly, but continued to cry silently. She was silent for a moment before speaking.

"I can't believe he would do that. We're dead, we're all dead!"

"C'mon, Zoey, we should keep moving. We all saw the helicopter, we know it's in the city. We'll be okay, Zoey," said Louis reassuringly.

"Yeah," Francis concurred, but he was unsure of what else to say. Being sensitive wasn't exactly his strong point.

"We'll take a five minute break here," said Bill. "After that, we keep moving. The soldiers sacrificed their lives to protect us, so let's not let their sacrifice be in vain. We'll find that helicopter."

Zoey finally looked up. Her eyes were red, but she had the faint hint of a smile on her face. Perhaps, then, there was hope.

"All right then. Let's do it."

--------

_Author's note again: So, I'd like the community's input on this. Do you think this story so far warrants an M rating? If you feel it doesn't, please say so in a review. I may end up changing it to be T-rated, because I'm a greedy corporate kind of person who wants this fanfic to get more exposure, because it's a bit boring writing a chapter only to get a single review and not much else, you know? Let me know what you think._


	10. Distant Thunder

_A/N: Here is chapter 10. It is actually the written version of the intro cutscene, two weeks after first infection. Hopefully it is to your liking, and hopefully it is better than my first attempt at it. Enjoy, review, etc._

**10: Distant Thunder**

The group of four had taken the last ten minutes to regroup, reorganize and rejuvenate. Even in dark times such as these, meeting new people proved to be surprisingly easy. For the most part they all understood each other. They were generally cordial and polite to each other. Even Francis' rudeness provided something to laugh about.

None of them had seen the helicopter for nearly an hour. Some of them were beginning to lose hope, but not Bill: he explained that poor weather was an excuse not to send in a chopper, even a full blown military one. A civilian aircraft would not last a second in a storm. He pointed to the sky and the group saw the first brief flashes of lightning, accompanied by distant thunder.

"We should still head for higher ground though. Maybe we can set up a signal fire," said Zoey

"Yeah, Zoey, it'll be like a bonfire party…and every zombie in this damn city's going to see it! That sounds like a great idea, I'll bring marshmallows and graham crackers if you bring the chocolate!" Francis guffawed.

"You know what I mean," sighed Zoey. But she smiled anyway as memories of camping trips with her family came back to her. Zoey remembered how her younger brother Jake used to set his marshmallows on fire and pretend they were meteors coming into the atmosphere. Her family used to make s'mores while camping. Often, they would invite other nearby campers to join them around the fire and try some of the s'mores. They were delicious. Zoey could almost taste them right now.

She felt her throat tighten up painfully. Zoey pushed the thoughts of her family out of her mind. She breathed deeply and slowly, taking care to think only positive thoughts. When she was younger, she had asthma. Although it was less severe now than it was years ago, it could still hit her at bad times. That was why she had chosen to be a swimmer instead of playing other sports. Her doctor had recommended it, basing his verdict on absolutely nothing, as far as she could remember. But there was certainly merit to his points: she had never sustained an attack while in the water. However, another attack could surface at any time. Zoey didn't have her inhaler; she had left it back at her dormitory. Perhaps they could steal one from a pharmacy if there were any left.

"Hey, I got weapons here!" said Louis. "And ammo too, plenty of it."

The group stopped where Louis was standing. An M4 carbine sat leaning against a wooden crate which was full of ammunition: shotgun shells, pistol and rifle cartridges, enough to start a small war. There was another box next to the crate which held several M9 handguns, like the one that Zoey was carrying.

They spent the next five minutes stocking up on everything they could carry. Bill gave the Uzi back to a very grateful Louis, and grabbed the M4. Zoey grabbed another M9 pistol and attached a tactical flashlight to one of them. She attached some pistol magazine pouches to her belt – they were normally meant for modular vests, but in this situation, they would do just fine. She stuffed whatever ammunition she could into those pouches and into her pockets. As a last resort, Zoey took an extra M9.

There were some dead soldiers nearby, in a fairly advanced state of decomposition. Zoey felt horrible as she relieved one of the dead men of a thigh-mounted pistol holster, which she strapped to her own leg. She profusely whispered apologies. The dead man didn't respond for he was dead.

Louis had discovered a strange contraption on the table: it appeared to be a PVC pipe with what appeared to be a gutted smoke detector and timer crudely glued on. Bill quickly figured it out: it was a pipe bomb, with an electronic detonator.

"You see this here?" said Bill, pointing to a hijacked light switch. "You flip that on and the timer begins. Then you throw it. It's like a grenade, except no pin."

"Whoa," said Zoey. "Can I have that?" Bill handed the bomb to her: Zoey looked at it briefly and put it away in a magazine pouch. She felt slightly more powerful with this explosive device, although it was uncomfortably close to her spinal cord; should it go off on accident, the others would have to bury several pieces.

Soon, they were back on the road. Besides the thunder, all was quiet, although a few times, Louis thought he saw something moving across the rooftops above them. No one else had seen anything, and eventually, Louis decided he must have imagined that whatever was up there.

"You guys remember that one weird ass zombie back there?" Francis said, interrupting the silence.

"Which one?"

"The…you know, the smoking thing. With the tongue."

"Smoking? I don't remember it smoking," said Bill.

"It was. The thing was producing smoke and gas like a retiree at Country Buffet," said Francis, staring at Bill as he said this.

"I just remembered the tongue," said Zoey. "Jesus, it was long." She turned pink as she said this. "Don't say it!"

Francis chuckled and began to make off color jokes about what he would do if he had a long tongue. Louis tried to resist but also chortled slightly. Zoey glared at them.

"You guys are really – "

"Quiet!" Bill interjected, holding up a hand. "I hear something." He shouldered his M4 and turned into an alleyway. A second later, there was a shot and a wet explosion. "Got a boomer! Squad, regroup on me!" The rest went into the alley, which was littered with dozens of corpses, including a pair of legs that was dripping a greenish brown goo where the waist used to be. Bill had never seen anything quite like it.

"Hold up!" he commanded. The others stopped, staring curiously at the half-carcass that was dripping brown slime instead of red blood. Bill knelt down next to the pair of legs and stuck his finger into the slime, which was horrifically warm and gooey, like a pie filling. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together to feel the consistency. Bill even sniffed it: a vile rotten mix evoking odors of eggs, decomposition and meat.

"I ain't seen anything like this before," he said quietly.

"Jesus, don't let that stop you from smearing it all over yourself," Francis remarked sarcastically. Bill stood up, crossed the short distance between them and rubbed the slime onto Francis' leather biker vest.

"They're changing!" Indeed, this was something new. The Boomer had switched from simply having a bad case of gas to becoming a walking biological bomb. At least, that's what it seemed like. What else could the slime possibly do?

"Goddamn it Bill!" Francis said angrily. He sniffed it and was assailed with the vile stench, worse than the trashiest slum, worse than anything he had ever smelled. "Oh, it stinks!" Louis simply chuckled at the turn of events. He was about to say something when the group heard a strange noise. Everyone stood utterly still and heard it: a long, drawn out wail from a woman. The sound was coming from behind a closed door. There was something haunting about the sound.

"Someone's still alive!" said Zoey. "We have to help her!"

A second later, Bill and Zoey were entering the room, weapons raised. It was pitch black inside this room. Bill motioned for Zoey to turn on her flashlight. She did so, bathing the room with a bright white brilliance that caused her eyes to water. The crying faltered for a second, but continued.

"Hello?" Zoey said to the darkness. "Hello?"

_Damn it, kid, shut the fuck up, you'll get us killed!_ Bill said in his mind. He kept a tight grip on his M4, and quietly deactivated the safety. The crying was causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. Bill couldn't for the life of him understand why. Surely, whatever was in the room was just a traumatized survivor.

"It's okay," Zoey cooed reassuringly to the presence in the darkness. She began to breathe again. There could be nothing wrong here. "It's okay, we're going to get you out of here…" She had raised her pistol enough so that the bright beam of the flashlight started to illuminate the opposite wall.

Bill saw that indeed, it was a woman – though the gray skin said otherwise. Her clothes were mere scraps and her limbs were frighteningly thin. The woman's eyes glowed orange when hit by the light – but it wasn't the eyes that caught Bill's attention. Her fingers had sprouted large claws: deadly looking spikes that could surely rip a man in half with little effort. Bill had seen and analyzed all this in under a half second. A flash of lighting accompanied by thunder briefly lit the entire room, exposing all of them.

"Lights off!" he snarled, grabbing Zoey's arm and yanking it towards the floor. He could feel the girl's arm shaking.

"Please, Bill, let's go!" Zoey squeaked.

…

Francis was conscious of the fact that he was very hungry. He hadn't had anything to eat for several hours. Any food would be good. Francis' eyes looked through the alley and saw the burned out remains of a steakhouse.

_I could use a fucking steak right about now_, he thought. The prospect of juicy, tender meat with A1 steak sauce was too much. Francis' stomach rumbled audibly so that Louis turned around.

"You're hungry too, huh?"

"I could sure use a steak."

"Me too. And you know what else? I want some fried chicken. Stereotype or not, I love the chicken."

"Hell yeah!" Francis agreed. "Chicken, and you gotta have mashed potatoes."

"You know what I miss most?" said Louis. "Apple pie. I haven't had apple pie in…oh shit." Louis pointed down the alleyway. Francis could see movement, and in seconds he heard the sound of a horde coming their way.

"Oh, shit," Louis muttered. "Shit!" Francis fired a shot from his shotgun into the crowd. It was an utter massacre in the crowded confines of the alley, but even the withering hail of lead was barely enough. Louis dashed into the room where Bill and Zoey were. He had attached a flashlight to his Uzi earlier, which was brightly lit.

"They're coming!" The light on his Uzi bathed the room with brilliance, illuminating Bill and a terrified looking Zoey as well as a monstrously mutated zombie: female, with razor sharp claws like steak knives. The zombie did not look at all pleased to have been intruded upon during her sorrowful solitude. She rose, screeched like a cat and spread her arms.

"Run like hell!" Zoey screamed. She bolted out of the room, followed closely by Bill, who paused to take some shots at the angry zombie. Louis shut the door and braced his body weight against it – whatever had been in there was _not_ going to come out. He held, even as the door dented in several places. It was only when a thin gray arm punched through the door like tissue paper did Louis leave his bracing position: he turned around and fired the Uzi on full automatic through the hole in the door.

Without the help of Louis' automatic gunfire, the crowd of zombies was getting too close for comfort. Even the devastating cyclone of buckshot from Francis' weapon was limited, for soon, he had to reload. Only Zoey was left firing while Bill and Francis loaded their weapons. And she too eventually ran out of ammo.

The horde rushed in: Francis beat one back with the butt of his shotgun as he reloaded, while Bill fought in close quarters using a stolen Ka-Bar knife. Zoey tossed her pistols aside and resorted to krav maga. She had taken lessons for the Israeli hand-to-hand combat system, more out of curiosity than anything else. It also had uses in dealing with zombies, apparently.

"DO YOU LIKE THAT!" Louis roared as he fired the last shot. It was just in time too: the quickly stopped flailing and fell as limp as a dead snake. He reloaded and turned back to other three, who were locked in close combat.

"Stick together!" Francis called to Louis, who nodded and rejoined the group, dispersing the immediate crowd with a long burst from his Uzi.

As the fighting raged on, Bill smelled something horrible: a noxiously suffocating stench that burned his nostrils. It was an odor like acrid smoke from a chemical fire. But it wasn't just the smell. He heard a dreadful shriek, like a scream from a man who had smoked too much. The very sound of it brought up images of a horribly mangled throat cavity. Bill turned around, but felt something wrap around his body and squeeze hard. In half a second he was yanked clear off the ground. He tried to shout, to say something, but he couldn't draw breath to speak.

It was fortunate that Francis had noticed Bill disappear from his peripheral vision. He turned around and saw Bill struggling feebly and the monster with the long tongue standing on a staircase. Without a second's hesitation, Francis chambered a round into his shotgun and fired once, shredding the creature's head in an instant. There was a raspy gasp accompanied by a pop and a large cloud of acrid smoke. Bill plopped back to the ground. A pair of zombies was running towards him.

Francis shrugged and fired again, destroying the first zombie. He swiveled and took out the second, splattering blood all over the place. Francis didn't even blink as he did this.

"Merry Christmas," he said sarcastically to Bill as the old man got to his feet.

"Thanks, Francis," Bill replied, grabbing his M4 and rejoining the fray. They were running low on ammo now, and the horde didn't seem to be relenting. Sooner or later, they would be overwhelmed.

Zoey was in a world of hurt. She had managed to reload both her pistols, but several zombies had grabbed her arms and were punching her viciously. Her vision was slowly blurring as the hits continued. She couldn't fight against the strength of nearly six zombies.

"Leave her alone!" Louis had noticed and was now roughly shoving the zombies away from Zoey. In such close quarters he dared not fire any bullets, lest he hit Zoey. It took only seconds for Louis to shove the zombies off of Zoey. To her, it felt like hours. Inevitably, the hits stopped – Zoey stumbled away from the wall, winded and bruised, but otherwise, in perfect fighting condition.

"Thanks Louis, I owe you," she said. Zoey reached around to the back of her waist and found what she was looking for: a thin PVC tube about eight inches long, with strange electronics and a switch to turn it all on.

"Oh, shit, you're not going to throw that, are you?" Louis said worriedly.

"Do it, Zoey, now!" Francis shouted. Zoey nodded and turned towards the oncoming horde. Her face was one of angry resolve.

_Let's finish this,_ she said to herself. Zoey flipped the switch: the electronics beeped and emitted a bright red flash like a camera. She drew her arm back to throw the bomb, knowing that it could explode at any second, killing her and everyone around. Zoey shouted a warning and threw it with all her strength – the zombies in the horde paused briefly to gawk at the beeping, blinking object that had entered the fray. They forgot the warm fresh meat of the survivors entirely and instead ran after the bomb, like hungry dogs attracted to meat.

Suddenly, everyone was scrambling for cover. Zoey was counting the seconds in her head, but by then, the bomb exploded, bathing the entire alley with fiery warmth and blood. An arm landed in her lap; she grabbed it and tossed it away. Their ears were ringing, but they all knew that the horde had been stopped.

They had scarcely caught their breaths when the sound of thumping rotor blades drew close. A news helicopter flew over, scanning the area with a spotlight. It was flying so low that the downdraft from the rotor blades felt like a hurricane. Louis could taste the sweet flavor of rescue.

"Hey! Down here!" he called to the chopper. Without even thinking he began to run back out of the alley. "We're not infected, down here!"

"Louis, you dipshit, get your ass back over here!" Francis called to no avail. He looked up and saw the silhouette of a hooded figure – unmistakably humanoid, but impossibly agile, able to leap from roof to roof. Its behavior was consistent with a predator: stalking…hunting…killing.

"Oh god no…Louis!" Zoey cried out. She also took off running. Francis called her back, but it was no use.

"Fuck, no one listens to me," he grumbled. "Come on, Bill, let's go!"

…

Louis slowed down in the middle of the street as he watched the helicopter fly off. Evidently, it had not seen him. He cursed angrily at it, but suddenly felt an odd chill in his body. Louis had the sensation that he was being watched – as the sounds of the helicopter faded, he heard a catlike shriek. It reminded him of some predatory hunting animal, like a mountain lion or even a tiger. Instinct told him to move, but it came too late. Suddenly, he was on the ground, being straddled by a hooded zombie that was evidently not one of the normal ones.

"Whoa, shit!" he screamed in terror as he stared up into a bloody gray face and grotesquely long, sharp teeth. This was _some_ mutation; already they had seen the Boomers, with their voluminous explosive bodies, and those toxic zombies with the really long tongues – smokers? He thought that was an appropriate name, certainly more concise than "those guys with the long tongues." And now this thing that was beating him to death. He had no idea what to call it.

Louis could barely muster the strength to fight back; he simply let the thing attack him as he gave up. Already, the pain was fading as the thing beat the life out of him. He was only slightly aware that the creature's hands had grown claws, which would tear him to ribbons. He welcomed the end as the claws swooped down.

…

Zoey had seen all this happen and was sprinting as fast as she could. She felt her chest tightening and her throat closing, the earliest signs of an asthma attack, one that she had not had in years. Zoey willed herself to focus on what was most important: saving Louis. She barreled into the creature that was about to kill Louis, moving so fast that she resembled a pink blur. Zoey tackled the stunned zombie into the car and drew back slightly, firing both her pistols in rapid succession.

Louis came back to reality and drew his own pistol. If Zoey's 9mm pistols were strong, then Louis' PX4 Storm, chambered in .40 S&W, was even stronger by comparison. He only needed to fire once to kill the creature, but for good measure, he fired three times total, sending it sprawling into a car. He had not counted on the car being alarmed. A shrill siren activated: the sound was liable to draw the attention of every single zombie in the area. The resulting collective shriek from hundreds of zombies confirmed that was exactly what happened.

"Oh, this is going to get bad," said Bill as he joined the group. "Let's go!"

They ran for all they were worth, but it was a lost cause: there was no way that they could fight so many zombies. The four of them formed a tight cluster, each covering a sector. The sounds of angry zombies grew louder.

"Fuck," said Louis. "Shit!"

"It ain't any use cursing, Louis," said Bill. "Just remember, cover your sector."

"We're going to die, right?" asked Zoey plaintively. Everyone's eyes were now fixed upon Bill.

"Yes, we probably are. If you want to go out quickly, now's as good a time as any if you still have ammo." But none of them turned the guns on themselves – they simply went back to covering the sectors, ready for whatever came at them. The first of the zombies were now visible.

"Come and…whoa." Francis noticed something odd: a larger shape moving among the crowd of zombies, barreling through them like a tank. He squinted through the smoke and dust and indeed, it could have been a main battle tank. Perhaps…

"The military's here, they've got a tank!" Francis shouted happily. He had always hated the military, until now. Sure, they were an incompetent, overly patriotic organization that deceived kids, but then again, no other organization could provide a tank, a seventy-ton hulk of armor and gun.

"You dolt, that's not a tank, that's a big zombie!" replied Zoey. They heard a massive roar – animal, yet strangely human at the same time. Francis was reminded of the big guys in the gym that grunted while lifting. It bothered him to no end – wasn't being surrounded by sweaty men enough?

The screech of metal – a mangled car was thrown into the air, clearly showing the silhouette of what appeared to be an extraordinarily massive Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie. This was the tank that Francis had seen, and while it did not remotely resemble an armored vehicle, it certainly acted like one, indiscriminately killing the lesser zombies in its path.

The group cringed collectively as the car hit the road and rolled through the crowd behind them. It actually managed to clear a path to safety. The four survivors began to move in that direction.

"Run or shoot?" asked Louis, eyeing the zombie tank that came to them. When he received no response, he shouted his query. "RUN OR SHOOT?!"

"Both!" And so they did, running and shooting for life. They managed to escape through the crowd of zombies, but the tank was still an issue – a very big issue that would be extremely difficult to deal with. The survivors retreated into another alley, hoping the tank would not notice. But, of course, the tank _did_ notice – it chased them down the alley, roaring all the way, pausing only to smash its smaller, less well muscled brethren. Louis pointed to a fire escape ladder.

"Get to the roof!" he yelled. Zoey wasted no time in being the first on the ladder. Louis was right at her heels.

Francis and Bill stood ready to cover Louis and Zoey's escape. The tank rounded the corner. Immediately, Francis fired, watching the buckshot penetrate the flesh of the monster. But it was no use: the tank simply flung a writhing zombie towards Francis. It collided and knocked him flat. The tank went for the downed Francis, raising television sized fists to crush him to death.

Bill had other ideas: he fired the remainder of his ammunition into the tank. It afforded just the distraction he needed. The tank ignored Francis and swung at Bill instead, burying its fists into a brick wall. Francis took this opportunity to go up the ladder. The tank was thoroughly annoyed now. It ripped its arms out of the wall and hurled a concrete block at Louis, who was towards the top of the ladder. The structure began to falter with a metallic groan.

Bill knew he had only seconds. He turned around but found himself face-to-face with a zombie. Time slowed; he knew that his end had come, because there was no way he could raise his weapon in time. But he didn't need to: the distinctive pop of an M9, and the zombie's head exploded. Bill looked up stupidly and saw Zoey on the middle level of the fire escape with her pistols firing.

"Go, I'll hold them off!" she commanded. Bill wasted no time in scurrying up the ladder. He passed her and clapped her on the shoulder.

"End of the line, let's _go_, Zoey!" Zoey stayed put a little longer, firing round after round into the face of the tank, which was now climbing after them, destabilizing the fire escape structure. Eventually she decided that enough was enough. She went back for the ladder, but by now, the structure was hanging by a few screws. Zoey lost her balance and dropped one of her pistols. She scrambled as fast as she could, feeling the hot breath of the tank behind her. For a momentary second it even grabbed her ankle, but failed to maintain the grip.

"Come on, Zoey, move!" Louis encouraged. But it was too late – the structure collapsed entirely. Zoey simply jumped towards the sky. Her fingers had missed the edge by over a foot: suddenly, she realized she was going to die. The person closest to her was Francis, she screamed his name in desperation. Zoey felt his reassuringly warm hand wrap around hers, felt the shock of falling only to be stopped by her resilient shoulder joint. Meanwhile, the tank landed on its back, and the broken fire escape landed on the tank's head, crushing it like a potato chip.

It took a few seconds for everyone to realize that all of them were alive and relatively unhurt.

"We made it…I…I can't believe we made it!" Louis was actually laughing now. Even Zoey managed a smile, while Francis maintained his surly look.

"Son, we just crossed the street," replied Bill, who had begun smoking another cigarette. He took the longest drag he could and exhaled. "Let's not throw a party till we're out of the city, shall we?" In the distance, the four survivors could see the lights of a helicopter as it hovered near the roof of a tall building. Zoey recognized it at once.

"That's Mercy Hospital," she said. Zoey took a few deep breaths. "Maybe they're…evacuating…" She coughed and began wheezing slightly. Her expression turned into one of abject shock and horror.

"Zoey? What's going on?" asked Bill.

"Ugh…I had asthma…as a kid…I need…inhaler…we need to find…pharmacy…anything!" She leaned back against the wall and sank to the ground, clutching her throat.

"Zoey, try not to talk, just wait here!" said Louis. "This is an apartment, I'll check a medicine cabinet or something, just hold on!" Without delay he took off running towards the entrance to the apartment complex.

"Aw, shit," said Bill, standing up and tossing aside his cigarette. "Francis, watch over her, I'm going with him. Try and keep her calm."

"Fuck, how do I do that?"

"Figure it out!" Bill snapped as he went into the apartment after Louis. Francis shook his head and looked at Zoey, who was still wheezing and leaning against the wall. He felt like a fool, but Francis helped Zoey into a more comfortable position so that her head rested in his lap. He squeezed her hand.

"You'll be fine, I'm sure they'll find something." Zoey simply nodded.

It began to rain – hard. At this point, there was little else that Francis could do besides carry Zoey into the entrance. It was a simple stairwell, but at least it was warm and dry. Francis listened, but couldn't hear anything but the rain and Zoey's wheezing. He heard no gunshots from inside the apartment. That had to be a good thing, at least if it meant that there were no zombies. Louis and Bill would have an easier time finding an inhaler for Zoey. Or, in a more grim scenario, they could already be dead.


	11. Requiem

**11: Requiem**

The seconds ticked on, and Zoey was not getting any better – although from what Francis could tell, her condition was blessedly not getting worse. She was sitting upright now, but continued to wheeze with each breath. She could even carry on a conversation, albeit in a severely limited sense: Francis had scavenged a splintered but functional pencil that had wedged itself into a crack, and torn off a piece of the drywall. Zoey was now writing her side of the conversation.

"You like movies?" asked Francis. Zoey nodded emphatically and wrote quickly.

_I love movies, espcly horror._

"Horror movies? Shit, girl, you need better tastes!" Zoey shook her head and continued writing.

_False. Seen 28 Days Later?_

"What, the one with British people and zombies?" Zoey nodded in response. "Okay, that one was all right. But I hate the British," Francis declared. Zoey frowned at that.

_Why?_

"They get on my nerves with their accents and their tea and crumpets. But they're nothing compared to the French. Damn frogs."

_You're ignorant, but whatever. _A sound at the bottom of the staircase drew their attention. Louis had returned, clutching an inhaler in his hand.

"Zoey! I got this for you!" He handed the inhaler to Zoey, who quickly read the prescription label on the canister. She evidently decided it would work fine, for she put placed the dispenser into her mouth and took a dose. Zoey made a valiant effort to breathe deeply. Soon, her symptoms subsided, and she was able to talk quietly.

"Thanks, Louis," she said, her voice barely above a strained whisper.

"No worries," replied Louis. His gaze lingered on Zoey for a second before he spoke up again. "Bill thinks we should head to Mercy Hospital, since he saw the helicopter up there. Personally, I say we wait here for a helicopter. His plan is more dangerous, but mine might not work if the helicopters don't come around. So we have to decide: go, or stay?"

"I say we go," said Francis. "I'm tired of waiting around, plus, I'm starving."

"I think we should wait," said Zoey. "At least for a day. We can rest up and maybe watch where the helicopters fly." She looked towards the skies as she said this, but saw only desolate emptiness. The helicopters must have finished their missions for the night. And so, the group decided to act upon that plan. In the meantime, they retreated downstairs into the apartment complex.

The top floor apartment was in an advanced state of disrepair and destruction. Surely, the occupants didn't mind: in the bedroom, two festering corpses lay, hand in hand, no doubt having committed suicide. There was even a note on the nightstand, but none of them had the heart to read it. Even the dead have secrets, and those should only be known to those close to the victims.

In the pantry, there was plenty of food: a large box of saltines, several boxes of dry pasta, a few jars of pasta sauce, a large jar of pickles, and plenty of other random nonperishable foods. Although cooking in such a time did not seem a prudent action, the group also understood the importance of boosting morale whenever possible. Bill checked the streets and the rest of the apartment: from what he could tell, the zombies were mostly shambling about aimlessly, occasionally stopping to vomit or fight each other. If they kept their guard up and kept reasonably quiet, they could go by without disturbing them. Or, in this case, rest up.

Still, he and Francis spent the next half hour in barricading doors. By the time they had finished, they had created six layers of defense, which would give them plenty of time to regroup if anything happened. The broken windows that led to open air were blocked off with conveniently placed bookshelves. They lit the room they were in with a few scavenged camping lanterns.

Meanwhile, Zoey and Louis were in the kitchen, preparing a meal. The stove was propane powered and was functioning perfectly well. Louis went to work setting up every container he could find onto the roof of the apartment, to catch the pouring rain. Meanwhile, Zoey waited for the water on the stove to come to a boil. Louis came back downstairs from setting out the containers, wearing a sopping wet poncho, but looking very happy.

"You know, Zoey, I think we might just make it through all this," he beamed.

"Why do you say that?"

"I just have that feeling, you know?" He was attempting to grate a block of parmesan cheese with a knife, for he couldn't find a cheese grater. In general, his efforts turned out well, if uneven. "We're about to have a meal and all that…it seems like things are somewhat normal."

"I know what you mean," said Zoey as she stirred the pasta. "Heck, look at this place." She pointed to the dinner table, which was already set for a meal, looking oddly organized in a kitchen full of debris that had been hastily shoved aside. "It's like friends having dinner together. All we need now is a TV and a movie."

"Or some video games," said Louis. "I love me some Call of Duty." Zoey laughed.

"I tried playing that, but I sucked. I suck at shooting in video games, even more than I do in real life."

"You've done all right so far," Louis said.

"Thanks. But you know something? There's one game I am good at. You ever play _Rock Band_? My roommate Leanne had it on her Xbox."

"The Xbox is not a console, it is a brick," said Louis, grinning. "And _Rock Band _is not a game; it's an outlet for teenage boys to go play fake instruments because their parents won't buy them real ones. PC gamers rule!"

"It is _so_ a game, you geek!" Zoey huffed. Her face eventually reverted into a thoughtful look of remembrance, tinted with a shade of sadness. "Leanne and I had a lot of good times playing that game. We were going to save up to buy an Xbox 720 when it came out for holiday season."

"Did you two share the Xbox or something?"

"We both paid for it, but she paid two thirds of the price – basically, she got to take it home and all that, but when we were in school, it was just as much mine as it was hers."

"Sounds like you had a good time in college."

"For the three months I was there, yeah," Zoey said wistfully. "And in retrospect, I wish I'd paid more attention in class. Or even went to class in general."

"Oh, you were _that_ kind of student."

"Yeah," Zoey said, grinning. "And if I could go back and change things, I'm not sure I would. My grades may have sucked, but really, great memories are a rare thing. You shouldn't change them."

"Unless you want to get rid of the zombies," Louis pointed out.

"Oh. Right." Zoey continued to stir the pasta, which was nearing completion. Louis continued to grate cheese with a knife. The pair worked in silence for a while; the only sound was the steady rolling of the boiling water and the sounds of furniture being shifted around the lower levels of the apartment.

Zoey turned off the stove as the pasta was nearing completion. She wanted to drain the water from the pasta, but as she lifted the heavy pot, she slipped and some of the scalding hot liquid poured over her hand.

"Damn it!" she exclaimed, quickly setting the pot back down on the stove. Fortunately, none of it spilled.

"Are you all right? What happened?" Louis was standing in front of her now.

"Nothing. Well, actually, I spilled hot water over myself."

"Let me check it out," said Louis, who was looking concerned.

"No, it's fine, I just need to be more…yeah, actually, go ahead." Zoey held out her hand for Louis to inspect. In the dim light, she could see that the scald injury was scarcely anything to worry about – only a couple of minute blisters were visible. Still, Louis' touch was comforting to Zoey. His hands were reassuringly warm, and his grip, both gentle and firm, showed strength. There was something she liked very much about him.

"You'll be fine," he concluded as he finished the inspection. _Well of course I'll be fine, it's just some hot water_. "Want me to put some ointment for that? We found some in the medicine cabinet from downstairs." _Oh god, yes please._

"No thanks, I'll be okay," said Zoey, smiling at Louis. She stood up and reattempted her draining of the pot: this time, with calculated precision and caution. Zoey could barely wipe the grin off her face: the solitary minute between them, the touch that only lasted a few seconds, had left her positively giddy. Of all places, during the zombie apocalypse, and now she had a crush on a fellow survivor.

_This is _so_ fucking clichéd_, she thought to herself. _It's like being in a movie_.

A few minutes later, Francis and Bill rejoined the main party for dinner – and indeed, when they all sat down together at the table with plates laden with pasta with sauce, they looked just like a group of friends having a dinner party as a prelude to a movie night. Of course, it was an odd looking group: an African American office worker, a 19 year old college girl, a surly looking Vietnam veteran and a tattooed biker hardly seemed like friendly company.

For several minutes, the survivors were mostly silent as they hungrily wolfed down the copious amounts of pasta that had been cooked up. The sauce that accompanied the pasta tasted fresh. For a while, they were able to relax and not worry about the zombies. They talked, joked and laughed with each other. The only indication to an observer that anything was wrong was the various firearms stacked against the wall, ready for action at a moment's notice.

Bill finished his meal. He pushed his plate away from him with a contented sigh.

"Zoey, that was wonderful pasta. Even if it was the stuff that comes in a box."

"Thanks, Bill, I'm glad you liked it," replied Zoey.

"Definitely." Bill searched for cigarettes but found that he was out. "Well, team, we should probably rest up for the night. I doubt anyone wants to use the bed, since there are dead people on it, but we found some spare blankets and scavenged a couch for everyone."

"Should one of us stay awake for security?" asked Louis.

"That's a good plan, Louis. I say we do it in buddy teams. You and Zoey will be one team, Francis and I will be the other. We'll switch off teams at three hour intervals."

"I vote Louis and Zoey go first!" said Francis.

"Denied," replied Bill. "We're on guard first." Francis grumbled, but picked up his shotgun and sat down in a chair with his feet on the table. Bill retrieved some random magazines from the bathroom and began reading those.

Zoey and Louis each found a couch to sleep on. They were so comfortable, in fact, that within seconds, both of them were asleep. They finally felt secure and confident that nothing could harm them while they slumbered. Paranoia gave in to blissful dreams of a better time. For the next few hours, that is.

…

"Zoey. Wake up." She awoke to a light nudge and found herself looking up into the face of Francis. He was looking eager to sleep.

"Ah, shit, time already?" Zoey groaned. Three hours of sleep barely felt like enough, but in situations such as these, it was more than adequate.

"Yep. Get off the couch, it's my turn." Zoey nodded and crawled out of the blankets. Francis eagerly tucked himself in and began snoring almost immediately. Zoey went over to the dimly lit kitchen area. Louis was already there, looking at a _Consumer Report_ magazine.

"Zoey, is it just me or is three hours of sleep a bit low?" he said, yawning as he did so.

"Well, if this were college, then three hours is perfectly normal, I think. It happens when you stay up all night watching horror movies. But yeah, three hours sucks."

"I don't even know what time it is right now," said Louis. "My watch broke."

"Maybe one of us could sleep and the other watches?"

"Fuck that, we'll both fall asleep then. At least we can keep each other awake."

"That didn't sound dirty at all, Louis," said Zoey.

"Well, you know, I don't mean it like that…" Louis appeared flustered before he frowned at Zoey. "That's a perfectly legitimate statement, it wasn't dirty until you made it so!" he accused.

"Relax, Louis, I'm just playing with you," said Zoey, grinning. She giggled slightly as she thought about the unintentional double entendre.

"Spoken like a true college student," Louis sighed. "What has society come to? In my day it wasn't like this."

"Louis, you're only ten years older than me, how different could it possibly be?"

"Way different, from what I remember," said Louis. He looked back at Zoey, who was staring him down with a suspicious look. "Oh, all right. If anything it was worse. What with all the parties and stuff."

"You see, I knew you must have done stuff besides studying in college."

"Eh, it's not something I'm proud of," said Louis wistfully. "There's a time and place for everything, and that's called college. What happens in college, stays in college."

"Amen to that," said Zoey. Although she appeared calm externally, she was a mess of confused feelings inside. She was scared because every day for the last two weeks had presented a serious risk of death. Zoey was only 19, hardly a proper age to die, and though it was easy for her to say that she was willing to accept death, it still didn't change the fact that she was scared shitless of it. Zoey felt angry as well. Angry because her world had been changed for the worse, angry at the deaths of everyone she knew. Professor Levinson, Leanne Archer, her entire family…a lesser mind might have been driven insane by such losses. Not Zoey. She didn't have the blissful escape of insanity to turn to. All she had were her guns and her team.

Amidst the fear and anger, there was an odd feeling of longing for the man sitting across from her. The circumstances could not have been stranger. She had known him for less than twenty four hours. But, she reasoned, they had already experienced more together than any of her friends or boyfriends, period. Leanne Archer hadn't shoved a zombie off of Zoey as she struggled to fight back. Ryan Taylor had never provided covering fire for Zoey so that she could reload.

Ryan. Maybe that was part of the reason. Just when she figured that things couldn't possibly be any worse, she had run headlong into the last person on earth she wanted to see. Perhaps it was because Louis was the opposite of Ryan. He was black, Ryan was white; Louis was older, Ryan was her age; Louis was a dedicated, caring man, and Ryan was a lying fuck. Yes, that would be it. Louis was everything that Ryan was not, and that was what drew Zoey in.

"Are you all right?" asked Louis. Zoey looked back at him, mouth open as she debated on what to say.

"What?" Zoey cursed her less than stellar response.

"I said, are you all right? You're not looking too good."

"I'm okay, I was just thinking about things." _Better_.

"Huh, me too. Want to share?"

"Louis, I just want to say that…" Her voice faltered and then stopped entirely. She was silent for several seconds.

"Say what?" asked Louis, giving no indication that he was aware of anything significant.

"Nothing. Well, something, but maybe another time." _If we live that long_.

"Another time then," said Louis, returning to his National Geographic magazine. He appeared to be entirely engrossed in an article about the supposed Mayan calendar doomsday prediction that was supposed to happen on the winter solstice of 2012. It seemed that the Mayans and their visions of the apocalypse had been off by a little less than a month. He was not focusing as much on Zoey.

Which was probably fortunate, Zoey eventually decided, as she sadly stared off into space, fighting to keep the lump in her throat down to a reasonable level. She had shown considerable courage when fighting zombies and even staying behind on the fire escape ladder to continue fighting the tank. But when it came to admitting a simple thing to Louis, she almost felt it would be easier to fight a million tanks at once. Zoey cursed her own naiveté. Now was neither the time, nor place. Zoey reasoned that the only important thing right now was to stay focused, and keep the others alive.

Still, it was easy to dream.

_A/N: This is where you, the reader, give me some input, because from what I can see, I slightly lack the ability to write convincing character attraction and such. I'm more the "guns and gory" kind of guy. Even if you are anonymous, please leave a review or advice or something. Thanks._


	12. No Mercy

_A/N: I finished this chapter in one night. Sorry my update took a while. As always, review and stuff, and be merciful if the chapter is not as good as my other ones. Ha, be merciful to a chapter called No Mercy. (I put in that part so I could make a shitty pun, sorry)_

**12: No Mercy**

The next day was gray and rainy. Although the survivors were well rested and well supplied, the cloudy skies seemed to be a portent of doom to them. In any case, all four survivors were quieter than usual as they consolidated their equipment.

While they had plenty of food and water, there was a decided lack of medical supplies and ammunition. Most of the morning had been spent making lightning fast commando style raids into pharmacies to grab medical supplies, as well as scavenging ammo off the numerous corpses of policemen and soldiers. The zombies proved to be extra aggressive during the day, compared to at night, when they mostly wandered about aimlessly, pausing only to eat corpses and drink from puddles of water. The virus, it seemed, did not shut off the parts of the brain that governed basic survival.

They moved in teams of two: Zoey and Louis were the medical acquisition team, while Bill and Francis scrounged for ammunition and weapons. Francis had even managed to find an intimidating machete, which he held on to like a child. By lunch time, the survivors regrouped back in their apartment hideout. By now they had enough supplies to make it to Mercy Hospital. So far, though, no new helicopters had been seen.

To bide the time they played cards and read whatever books or magazines could be found. They decided that they would move at night, when the zombies were less aggressive. Either way, they would make it to Mercy Hospital. If the helicopter was there, they could make it to safety. If it wasn't…they'd have to think of something else.

…

Nightfall came rather quickly – the rain slowed down a bit. It was certainly more than a drizzle, but much more tolerable than a monsoon. And indeed, with the improved weather, the helicopters appeared. One of them, a news helicopter, flew startlingly close to the roof, blaring a recorded message:

"To anyone who can hear this: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation. Repeat, proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation." The message gave the survivors hope, even if the helicopter simply flew past without noticing them.

They wondered if that meant there were more survivors. Surely, some others in the world besides them had to be immune from the virus. How many? One out of a hundred? A thousand? The city of Fairfield was a big one, with over a million people. If even one of a thousand were immune, then surely, there were a thousand immune survivors in the city. Still, being immune made you resistant only to the virus' effects. It did not protect against a zombie biting down on your jugular.

"We can take the subway," said Louis. "The Red Line North will take us straight to Mercy Hospital."

"I don't think the subways are working," Bill reminded Louis.

"I think he means the tunnels," said Zoey. "We follow the tunnels. There might be fewer zombies down there."

"Good point," Bill mused. "Let's go to the station. Holly Street is closest, it's right over there."

"I hate subways," Francis declared. "Bunch of people all over the place, and you get those homeless guys always asking for cash…"

The survivors set off towards the Holly Street Station, weaving between the wandering zombies. Once in a while, one would notice the survivors and make a beeline for fresh meat, only to be dispatched with a gunshot to the head. Any other zombies nearby would hear the gunshots and run over to investigate. Often, it was easier (albeit more terrifying) to sneak past them. Francis found that using his machete was an effective way to kill the zombies quietly, until the blade broke.

"Fuck this Walmart shit!" he grumbled, tossing the machete away.

They quietly descended the stairs to the Holly Street Station, but found the main access blocked by debris. Instead, a large section of wall had been blasted open, leading into a storage room connected to an office. What was most unusual was the door itself: it was spray painted bright red. The door itself had large sections of plywood and metal bolted to it. It was a crude way to reinforce a door.

The survivors had no trouble getting in through the door – they were now in a room that was, miraculously, well lit. A few rolled up sleeping bags were leaning against the wall. A table in the middle of the room held several military ammunition containers.

"I'll be damned," said Bill. "Someone created a safehouse."

"Over here!" Zoey exclaimed, reaching out towards the table. Her hand came away with a piece of paper clutched between her fingers. She opened it up. "It's a note." Zoey began to read:

_Dear survivor(s);_

_Congratulations on making it this far. This is a safe room that I have created for anyone to use. You will be safe here – no zombie can get in through the doors, except maybe the big one. There is food and water and plenty of ammunition, as well as sleeping bags. I ask that you be considerate and take only what you need._

_Undoubtedly you are heading to Mercy Hospital. To make things easier on you, I have mapped out the safest route through Fairfield to get you there. That doesn't mean it's safe. Be prepared for a dangerous journey, and be ready for a fight._

_When you leave the room, head through the subway station and up the Red Line North. You will eventually come across a point where the tunnel is blocked – there is a maintenance door you must go through, which will take you to a generator room. You'll have to activate a generator to go through the door. It makes a lot of noise, so be careful. The zombies will hear it, and they WILL come in force. We've mounted a helicopter minigun there to help you._

_After that you'll keep going and find yourself back on the street. Keep going until you reach a gas station next to a diner. There's a hydraulic lift; activate that and use it to get to the roof of the building. Go through the warehouses until you find yourself in the Fairfield Waste Treatment Facility. This will suck, but you'll have to go down through the sewers – find a ladder up and you'll be right next to Mercy Hospital. From there you just have to fight your way up to the top floor, where a helicopter can pick you up._

_If you've made it that far, you'll be safe. Hopefully you won't come across too much. I killed every zombie between here and the hospital rooftop, came back to leave you this note, and then went back. All to save you, survivor. Most of humanity is gone: that is why it is crucial that you succeed. If you're alive and reading, you're immune, and if you can get to safety, humanity has a fighting chance._

_There are other safe rooms along the way – just look for the house shaped signs with the cross in them._

_Watch your back out there._

_Best of luck,_

_Chicago Ted_

"Chicago Ted? Is that a real name?" asked Zoey. She passed the note around for everyone to see. It was a hasty scribble on a flimsy piece of notebook paper.

"Probably a pseudonym," said Bill.

"Probably bullshit, too," Francis decided. "Do you seriously think one guy could do all this by himself?"

"It does seem a little suspicious," Louis agreed. "But on the other hand, his directions make a lot of sense. I say we trust Chicago Ted."

"I'm with you," said Zoey. "So do we keep moving or do we stay here?"

"Every second we aren't moving is another second for the zombies to get into position. We should move out fast. Drop everything you don't need for the next hour or two. We're going light," Bill commanded.

The survivors unloaded their food onto the table. They each took a last drink from their water bottles before leaving those as well. The only thing they kept were their weapons, their medical supplies and plenty of ammunition.

Before long, they exited the safe room in a single file line, with Francis and his pump action shotgun taking the lead. Almost immediately there was a loud blast, and a single zombie which had been in the way was shredded by a load of buckshot. Throughout the corridors of the subway system, jeering shrieks and snarls answered the sound.

"Damn it, Francis, was that really necessary?" snarled Bill.

"Whatever, man, none of those fuckers is getting through us!" Francis pumped his shotgun and aimed at an approaching horde. He fired twice, ripping large chunks of flesh and even entire limbs off the bodies. The other survivors followed, shooting any that got too close. Their killing was slow, but methodical. Each survivor covered his or her own sector of fire. Francis took the front, while Louis and Zoey covered the flanks, leaving Bill to check the rear and provide extra support when needed.

Within seconds, the first horde was gone. The four survivors, with their ears ringing from gunfire, stopped next to the ticket collection booths. Zoey broke off from the main body and called back to her comrades.

"Guys, you won't believe what I found!"

"What have you got, kid?" asked Bill, looking up.

"Guns. Lots of guns…big guns, better than the shit we have now. Check it out." She was holding a large, menacing looking shotgun in her hands. "Francis, here you go."

Zoey dropped the shotgun into Francis' arms. Unable to contain a grin, Francis tossed his old shotgun aside. He hefted the new one and aimed down the sights.

"Automatic shotgun, baby," he said with a loving voice. "Now these, I don't hate." It was a military issue M1014 shotgun, typically used for door breaching. However, when loaded with eight twelve-gauge shells, he could send a devastating barrage of buckshot downrange as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Louis was in heaven as he admired the weapons that gleamed proudly before him. He had never seen so many military armaments of mass destruction up close. Being an avid gamer in a previous life, he recognized all of them. He traded his Uzi for an MP5 submachine gun, the type that was issued to pilots and tank crewmen.

"Man, this is just like Counter Strike!"

"I hate Counter Strike," said Francis.

"You just suck at it is what I think," Louis quipped.

"Yeah, well, video games are for fags anyway. Not saying you're one, of course. You're all right."

"Thank you, Francis," said Louis as he began loading up ammunition. Meanwhile, Bill was teaching Zoey how to operate an M4. Hers had a scope mounted on the upper receiver, as well as a laser sight. Zoey did not appear too happy about having to carry a larger weapon, citing that she had been perfectly comfortable with just a pistol. Nonetheless, she loaded up her weapon and indicated she was ready to move.

They continued through the Red Line North – only a few zombies stood in their way. In fact, things were going very well. They had plenty of ammunition and were all uninjured. Of course, Bill suspected otherwise. He had learned something from being a soldier: if you're attack is going smoothly, you're walking into an ambush.

From out of nowhere, a boomer came rushing out of the darkness, jiggling as it waddled towards the four survivors with arms outstretched.

"Holy fuck!" Zoey screamed as the thing advanced closer. She pointed her M4 at the beast's belly.

"DON'T!" Bill yelled, but it was too late: Zoey loosed several rounds into the belly, which exploded like a watermelon and showered the area with foul smelling goo. Much of it had landed on Zoey. She was covered from head to toe with rot. Almost immediately the substance congealed into a solid, like fast drying glue.

"Aw, fuck," she moaned as she frantically tried to peel off the solidified slime. It was a surprisingly easy process, and it hadn't even absorbed into her clothing. But something didn't feel right as she peeled away the slime.

"Oh, shit, there they are!" Louis yelled. He was the first to open fire, followed closely by Francis. Bill and Zoey looked up and saw that a massive horde had appeared. They rushed obliviously past Francis and Louis. Zoey saw with horror that they were heading straight for her. Perhaps it was the slime on her body that made her so irresistible.

"Help me!" she screamed as she loosed a prolonged burst of gunfire into the horde. Bill fired as well, but that was ineffective – the horde was on her in a heartbeat. Zoey was pushed backwards towards the wall. Her eyes were wide with fear as she struggled against the strength of the crowd.

"Eat lead!" shouted Francis. He shredded many of the zombies at nearly point blank range, thinning the crowd, while Louis fired with him. The zombies were definitely decreasing in number, but it didn't stop the remainders from continuing to attack Zoey. She was curled up on the ground, her weapon long forgotten, quivering and jerking as the impacts came. This lasted for fifteen more seconds before the last zombie was finally dispatched. Zoey seemed to relax slightly. She rolled over onto her side, groaning and coughing.

"How bad is it?" she squeaked.

"Hell, kid, they just winged you. Come on, back on your feet, let's get moving." Indeed, Zoey appeared to be bruised and shaken, but certainly not badly injured. "Just a reminder, Zoey. Next to you see the fat ones, back away before shooting."

"Yeah," replied Zoey through gritted teeth. "I'll remember."

They continued on through the subway system until indeed, they found the blocked tunnel. Just as Chicago Ted had written, they had to pass through a maintenance area. They came upon the generator room as expected. It was blessedly empty, but surely, their luck wouldn't hold out long.

"Looks like we have to pull that lever," said Zoey, pointing to a console that activated the generators. "It'll take a minute or two to open the door."

"And those generators will be loud," said Bill apprehensively. "Every damn zombie from here to Francis going to come after us."

They went into a locker room. The front wall had been broken down, but in its place stood a pile of sandbags and a minigun mounted on a tripod. Louis stood next to it, viewing it with awe.

"Now _this_ is a big-ass machine gun!" he said happily. Indeed, he was right. The minigun in question was the type mounted on the sides of transport helicopters to give support for ground units. The six rotating barrels could spew out rifle ammunition at 4,000 rounds per minute. Such power could easily disintegrate a cow.

Eventually, the four survivors decided to take position in the locker room. Francis pulled the lever, starting up the generators. He ran back into position and the survivors tensely waited for the horde to come.

It did in thoroughly explosive fashion. Seemingly hundreds of zombies spewed through windows, doors and even vents. Louis, who was on the minigun, began shooting. The sound was unbearably loud. Both Francis and Zoey dropped their weapons and covered their ears. Each let loose a long burst of swearing that was lost in the thunder of the minigun. Louis appeared to be in tremendous pain as he fired. He would go deaf if he didn't stop.

Luckily, the ammunition in the minigun was limited, so the weapon did stop. Louis moaned and fell backwards. His face was a mixture of discomfort and ecstasy.

"Oh man…" he moaned. "Fuck that shit." Only Bill was still shooting. A brief lull in the horde allowed him to verbally berate the others.

"Pick up your weapons and start shooting!" he roared. The survivors clumsily followed the orders and returned to their positions, methodically killing the zombies as they came close. Several seconds and hundreds of rounds of ammunition later, the last zombie fell to the bloody floor.

The survivors vacated the generator room as fast as they could – they had to shout so they could even hear each other over the ringing in their ears. Bill could sense another horde coming.

"Let's go, people!" he yelled. The survivors bolted after the old man. They didn't stop, even when they engaged the zombies in their path. Louis was tripped by the long tongue of a smoker, but was quickly rescued. The horde was getting closer with every second. They ran through more warehouses until they found themselves back on the street. The rain proved to be refreshing for the survivors, but they didn't stop to enjoy it. Somewhere along the way, a car alarm went off, signaling yet another horde to augment the one that was already on their back.

"Look, a safehouse!" Francis called as he blasted a group of zombies out of the way. "In that pawn shop!" He led the way, shooting every zombie he could until he ran out of shells, after which he used the stock of his shotgun as a weapon. The survivors could see the red spray painted door – Francis was the first in, followed by Louis, Bill and finally, Zoey, who slammed the door shut. The horde descended upon the door, banging fervently on it. For a few tense minutes, the survivors waited for the crowd to bust through. However, the reinforcements on the door proved to be too much. Eventually, the crowd of zombies gave up, and went back to whatever they had been doing.

"Mother of mercy," said Bill. "That was too close."

"What?" asked Louis loudly.

"Doesn't matter," said Francis, who was closest to Louis.

They took a quick break for water, as well as to let Louis' hearing return. Several minutes passed and Louis decided that he had regained most of it back. Trusting his judgment, the group left the safe room and continued onwards. They were now in the back alleys between the pawn shop and whatever might be on the other side. No zombies stood in their path, until they came into the kitchen of a small diner.

From under a pile of boxes, a lone zombie emerged. It was in an advanced state of decomposition – much of its skin appeared to have been burned off, and the exposed flesh festered in the air. The subdermal fatty tissue had liquefied in an oily pool around the zombie, which stared at them through milky eyes.

"Oh my god…it's still alive…" Zoey whispered. Indeed it was: the open ribcage continued to expand and contract with the wretched thing's gurgled breathing.

"Put it out of its misery and keep moving," Bill commanded. All eyes were on Zoey now, who looked back at them with an expression of doubt. The men's faces were impassive, except Louis, who looked as if he might vomit at the grotesque sight before him.

"Can't someone else…?"

"You mentioned it first, Zoey," Bill said quietly. "You've killed in self defense before. But now, you need to learn how to kill in cold blood. Zoey, kill it and move on."

She stared back down at the zombie, which was trying to get up but unable to because of its deteriorated legs. It could only feebly try and grab her. A skeletal hand scraped over her jeans, leaving a bloody streak. Zoey drew her pistol and chambered a round. She pointed the barrel straight into the zombie's face, emptied all thoughts of it having once been human from her mind, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot made her jump, but she held her ground as the zombie collapsed backward, spraying blood and liquefied flesh all over the place. It was a gruesome sight but at the same time, she felt empty inside.

"You did good," Bill said gently. Without another word, he walked on. He searched through the pockets of a corpse and found a pack of cigarettes. Bill smiled as he lit one. A sweep of the eating area revealed no resistance. They exited the diner as Francis proclaimed how he wished that cheeseburgers still existed. It was a perfectly valid point, too. Save for pasta, the survivors had not eaten anything very good for a while. Certainly not a freshly grilled burger.

Just outside, there was a gas station and a loading dock for large trucks. Just as Chicago Ted's note had told them, there was a hydraulic lift that led up to a roof. Someone had already used it, for it was already elevated. It was lucky, then, that there was a ladder on the lift that allowed access. The survivors were careful as they climbed the ladder – in the rain, the aluminum was quite slippery. Francis had nearly fallen. But after a bout of curses, he too was up on the roof, which was also quite slippery.

They passed through several more rooms and corridors, finding nothing of interest, not even zombies. Louis, however, had found a bottle of painkillers in the hand of a dead man who had evidently killed himself from drug overdose.

"We should grab all we can," he said. "These pills might come in handy."

"We can just OD on those if all hope is lost," Francis guffawed.

"Hey man, I'm serious here! If one of us gets hurt, we might need these."

"Son, I assure you, there are things that hurt a lot more than headaches in this new world. But it's a good idea," said Bill through his cigarette. "Let's keep moving."

They continued on downstairs, had a brief scuffle with a trio of zombies (including a hunter) and were soon in a large room with cylindrical tanks scattered around. Louis recognized this place immediately.

"We're at the waste treatment facility," he explained. "We go down into the sewers, there should be no zombies, and we'll come up right under Mercy." Instead of being praised for his knowledge, the others gave him strange looks.

"Louis, you said you worked at Keller Tech?" asked Zoey.

"Yeah, I do. I mean, did."

"How is it you know so much about the sewers of Fairfield?"

"Oh." Louis grinned sheepishly and went on to explain about a friend he had who had helped design the area. The others accepted his explanation and quickly found the entrance to the sewers. The manhole cover had been left open, filling the room above with the unpleasant smells of thousands of gallons of human waste.

"Well…who votes we actually go down into the creepy, stinky sewer?" Zoey offered sarcastically. She smiled, but quickly reverted back to a sickly sort of look as soon as the others began looking back at her as if it was actually a good idea.

"No zombies down there…this place hasn't ever seen the light of day."

"It just smells like ass," Francis commented.

"Because you _would_ know the smell of ass?" Louis quipped, drawing a dangerous look from the biker.

"Man, that's just cold." Francis continued to stare down into the dark depths of the sewer. He pulled out his flashlight and shone the beam down. "Well…you guys ready to go knee deep in shit?"

"We won't have to, look what I found." Bill was standing next to a locker, where he had scavenged four waders, the kind used by fly fishermen. "These were the last ones, so you should feel lucky."

"And these too, I found some respirators. No need to breathe shit gas anymore." Louis tossed these on a bunch next to the locker.

Within minutes, they were changed into their waders and respirators. Bill was the first down, followed by Francis, with Zoey and Louis bringing up the rear. Even through the gas masks, they could feel the warm, moist greasiness in the air. Zoey could imagine every foul thing they were walking through. The liquid they traipsed through was slushy in consistency, although once in a while, she would feel something very solid brush up against her leg. She knew that the waders would prevent any liquid from touching her, but at the same time…

"This is fucking disgusting," she moaned through her respirator. "Let's move fast."

Everyone agreed with her. The tunnels of the sewer system were pitch black. Even the bright tactical flashlights mounted on their weapons (the kinds that could temporarily blind an enemy combatant for a few minutes) were not completely effective. Though they could illuminate long distances, their fields of illumination were decidedly narrow.

The sewers proved to be a relatively peaceful place until Zoey paused. Being younger than the rest, her ears were less degenerated than everyone else's.

"Fuck…do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Bill.

"That…that crying thing with the claws? The ugly gray bitch?"

"What? The witch?" said Louis, who had misheard Zoey. Evidently, his ears had not completely recovered from the minigun's ferocious sound.

"No, I…yeah, witch. There's one in the sewers with us." Suddenly, they were a little more on edge. The acoustics of the sewers were not great for pinpointing specific targets. The witch could have been anywhere. Zoey was the first to notice the witch approaching. The glowing red eyes were fixated on the group. Such a sight was scary in the dark – but on the other hand, it gave everyone an easy target. Aim low and you would reliably hit center mass.

"On the count of three," said Bill as everyone lined up like a firing squad. "Turn on your flashlights and give her everything you got. One…two…three!"

Four tactical flashlights went on at the same time, bathing the tunnel with angelic light. The witch recoiled from the sudden explosion of brightness and let out a terrifying scream. The survivors didn't even blink as they fired at the witch. Bullets of varying shapes and sizes tore through her body, while the buckshot from Francis' automatic shotgun tore huge pieces of skin off her body. The witch charged, but was slowed dramatically by bullets.

She continued to advance and take whatever punishment that firearms could deal. Both her arms had fallen off, yet she still advanced. In theory, she was no longer a threat. The gunfire stopped, but it was for reloading. Within seconds, the group was firing again – someone got off a lucky shot and it went right through the witch's head, tearing her lower jaw off. Eventually, the witch collapsed to her knees and hit the liquid shit she was wading through.

The gunfire had attracted a horde from somewhere in the sewer tunnels. Quickly, the realization came that there were actually plenty of zombies in the sewers, likely seeking shelter from the elements. The sounds of hundreds of feet sloshing through shit accompanied by adrenaline fueled gibberish echoed horribly.

"Run!" shouted Bill. They trudged as fast as they could through the waste. It was a painfully slow journey that seemed to lead to nowhere. If they were caught down there, they would never survive.

"Up there! That's the ladder!" Louis exclaimed. He jumped up to a concrete ledge that was blessedly free of liquidated feces. The others covered him as he took off his waders and began climbing towards the open manhole. One by one, each survivor pulled off his or her waders and ascended. Bill was barely able to close the manhole in time.

They were now standing near the emergency entrance of Mercy Hospital. It was a magnificent sight – a thirty story spire that loomed menacingly in the stormy sky. Though it was a place where lives were supposed to be saved, there was something ominous about the building. Perhaps it was the simply the product of lightning and rain that made it look scarier. Or, it might have been the fact that there was still power in the building. Silhouettes were visibly moving.

"Let's do this," said Zoey. She led the group into the hospital, through the front desk and into another one of Chicago Ted's safe rooms.

"Well," said Louis. "At least we're out of the sewers."

"Shit, you can say that again!" Francis agreed. He plopped down into a chair. "I'm getting sick of all this zombie shit."

"Well, we're not out of the woods yet. Mercy Hospital is probably filled top to bottom with zombies. Don't forget, a lot of people who got sick came here…they probably turned here. This is the source of it all," said Bill.

"Fucking hospitals," Francis sighed.

…

Contrary to what Bill had said, the hospital was not as chock full with zombies as expected. They did not have to go on an intensive room clearing operation as they ascended the floors. There was only token resistance from a few zombies still dressed in doctor's scrubs or hospital gowns. A few of the zombies were running around buck naked, much to Zoey's disgust.

"Ugh…that is wrong," she said quietly. "That is just wrong."

They were now traveling through a hallway where on either side, trauma rooms had been converted into makeshift laboratories. All of the rooms were locked by thick, bulletproof glass doors. Behind these doors, some of the specimens were clearly dead. They lay motionless with their rib cages split open to reveal the disgusting innards. Some of the rooms still contained live specimens, which banged uselessly against the glass. A hunter idly chewed on the remnants of a corpse. Several skeletons surrounded by pools of blood lay in the room. In another room, a smoker sat in a sort of hibernation until the survivors came by. It lashed its tongue at the group, but couldn't get past the bulletproof glass.

The other rooms held regular zombies that aimlessly wandered, except for the last room. Whatever had been inside had smashed its way through the bulletproof glass.

"That was probably a Tank," said Bill, observing the carnage.

"So where is it?" asked Louis. It was a chilling question no one wanted to answer. They continued onwards and found an elevator.

"I'll call it," said Zoey. She pressed the button and the group watched as the numbers ticked down. At first, everything was silent. And then, out of nowhere, Louis was yanked away from the group with alarming speed.

"Holy shit!" he yelled. Louis struggled valiantly but lost his footing. He dropped his MP5 and was now weaponless against the smoker at the far end of the hallway. Zoey immediately took off after Francis.

"Smoker!" Francis yelled. "Take it out!" He raised his shotgun, but Bill knocked it aside.

"Francis, you dolt, you might hit Zoey!" But Francis wasn't content to stand by – he instead opted to run right after Zoey and help rescue Louis from the clutches of the smoker with its lasso tongue.

The smoker at the end of the hallway was reeling Louis in like a fish. It was amazing how strong it was, more so because the smoker itself didn't appear to be very formidable. The tongue was fast, but Zoey was faster. She got up close to the smoker, which stared at her with surprise. Its tongue was still whipping about ridiculously. Zoey used the stock of her M4 as a bludgeon – she rammed it right into the smoker's festering face. The smoker loosened its grip on Louis for half a second, which was enough for him to wriggle one of his arms out.

During the struggle, the tongue actually tore right out of the smoker's mouth. So powerful was this force that even the creature's lungs came with it. The smoker expelled a large load of vile smoker gas right into Zoey's face; she choked and fell to the floor, coughing violently and reaching for her inhaler. Soon afterwards, the smoker also fell dead.

The sounds of struggle had attracted another horde, which descended upon the group like a tsunami. Louis dragged Zoey away from the horde, using his pistol to provide cover fire. However, it was Francis who proved to be the best crowd stopper. His automatic shotgun tore through the zombies like an ancient Greek phalanx battle formation.

Through the gunfire, Louis noticed that the elevator had arrived. He tapped Bill on the shoulder, who grabbed Francis who in turn grabbed Zoey. With the infected only inches behind, the survivors ran to the elevator. Bill frantically jammed down on the "elevator close" button while the others held off the remaining ones. It seemed to take an eternity, but finally, the doors shut and the elevator began its steady ascent towards the roof. No one spoke for a few seconds, for they were too tired.

"I can't get over how _fast_ they all are, it's not even fair, I'm calling…zombie _bullshit_ on that one, you know?" Zoey couldn't help but grin like an idiot – what was wrong with her, she didn't want to smile, she wanted to break down, cry and kill herself to speed up the inevitable. She quickly regained her composure. "They're not _allowed_ to be so fast."

Zoey's brief speech was met with strange stares from the men.

"Well, Zoey, good job," said Francis sarcastically.

"Come on, it makes sense! _Night of the Living Dead_, for example, the zombies shuffled around. You could get away by walking!"

"And _28 Days Later_, what do you call that?" Francis countered.

"Ah, fuck," said Zoey. She angrily reloaded her weapon as the elevator stopped at floor 28. They were on the other side of the hospital tower, where the last few floors were still under construction. Corpses of zombies lay everywhere, surrounded by bullet casings of all shapes and sizes. Bill picked up one of the casings and sniffed it.

"They came through recently," he said, tossing aside the shell. "We must be getting close."

They continued through the construction until they came across another safe room. On one of the walls, someone had written in Sharpie marker "NO ZOMBIE IS SAFE FROM CHICAGO TED."

"Chicago Ted again," said Bill, pointing to the text. "This guy must be the Chuck Norris of zombie killer or something. He came here to scout the escape route and went back to give instructions."

"I think he's a douche," said Francis. "This guy's full of himself."

"He was right though," said Louis. "Without Ted, we wouldn't even be alive right now. Hooray for Ted!"

"I'm with Louis on this one. Well, boys, we're almost there, so let's get to the roof." Zoey led the charge out the door, through a darkened hallway under construction and finally, up to a ladder which led them to the very pinnacle of Mercy Hospital's tower. From here, they could see the city of Fairfield in all its infected glory. Besides the pattering of raindrops on the concrete, the city was a silent, desolate wasteland. A few lights were visible throughout the city, but only isolated sections, certainly not the entire grid. Once in a while, a muzzle flash or even a small explosion was visible. Otherwise, the city was truly dead.

"There's a radio room over there," said Bill, pointing. "We can use it to call for help."

They made their way to the radio room, which was stocked with weapons and ammunition. Bill was the first to reach the microphone. He held down the talk button and spoke into it tentatively.

"Hello?" There was a delay and then a crackle of static.

"Hello! Great job, survivors, you made it. How many of you are there?"

"Four of us," replied Bill, unable to contain a smile. "All safe and sound."

"Perfect! I'll be coming your way now, it should take about fifteen minutes. And please stay alive. News Chopper 5, out."

"Stay alive?" asked Zoey as the pilot signed off. "He makes it sound like there's going to be a fight."

But there was no fight. They waited for several minutes with weapons poised, but no zombie came to meet them, not even a Hunter. Everything seemed too good to be true, especially when the helicopter, a Bell 205, appeared over the horizon.

"Holy shit, it's actually here!" Zoey yelled happily.

"Get to the choppah!" Francis bellowed, imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie _Predator_, eliciting a laugh from Zoey and Louis. Bill, who had never seen _Predator_, was focused on the helicopter itself. The Bell 205 was simply a civilian variant of the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter he had worked with in Vietnam. Although its red, white and blue paint job was in stark contrast to the olive drab of the Hueys he had seen, the engine sound was the same. It brought back memories of evacuating dead and wounded from a battle zone, assaulting an enemy position from the air, being ambushed at the LZ…

He saw it one second too late – a colossal roar and a piece of concrete flew through the air directly towards the helicopter, which swerved just in time to avoid the projectile. There was a loud crackle of static and the pilot's voice sounded over the helicopter's PA system.

"Holy shit! We got a big zombie down there, do something about him, I can't get close!" The survivors followed the chopper's spotlight beam to a muscled tank. Suddenly, Francis' choice of movie lines to quote didn't seem such a good idea anymore.

"I…hate…zombies!" Francis yelled with rage. They had been so close to rescue, but now things had just gotten worse with the unexpected arrival of the tank. He emptied several shots into the tank, which jumped down after the survivors with intent to kill.

Zoey couldn't help but start crying – there was simply no way they could hope to defeat the Tank, not with their tiny weapons. It was simply too strong for them. To have come so far, only to be stopped at the last minute. She knew in her heart that they were going to die up –

"Zoey, duck!" She dove towards the ground and narrowly missed being hit by a massive concrete block. A few chunks fell on her, but not enough to cause any injury. Zoey scrambled away from the debris. She could feel the tank coming closer. One punch from that monster and she would be killed instantly. Zoey swiveled around and fired several shots at the creature; actually witnessed the bullets rip into flesh. Yet it was still coming!

The bolt on her M4 locked back, indicating she was out of ammo – and there was no way she could reload in time. Zoey fumbled for her pistol, but before the tank could deliver a killing blow, it paused and turned around.

"That's right, big guy, I'm the one you want!" It was Louis, waving his MP5 in the air like an idiot. The tank roared with frustration and went after him instead. Louis darted between air conditioning units and maintenance rooms, frustrating the tank even further.

That distraction proved to be enough for Zoey: she reloaded her M4 and ran for the helicopter, which was now hovering near the side of the building. Bill and Francis were already inside.

"Come on, Zoey, go!" they urged. Zoey dove into the chopper, almost sliding out the other side. She was caught just in time by Francis.

"We can't stick around here too long!" shouted the pilot from the cockpit. The sound of rotor blades was deafening.

"We're not leaving without Louis!" Zoey shouted back. She turned back to the roof of the hospital, rifle raised. "Louis! Hurry up!"

Louis eventually came to the realization that he was alone with the tank on the roof, and that the others were already on the helicopter. He cautiously made his way around a tower with a satellite dish on it, and quickly found himself staring face first into a tank.

"Whoa!" he yelped. Louis ran the other direction, weaving between more obstacles before finally reaching a metal walkway. He could see the others in the helicopter, and even felt bullets pass dangerously close to him. Louis could hear the tank getting closer, and now, the helicopter was leaving him to die on the roof.

"JUMP!" Zoey screamed from inside the helicopter. Louis reached the edge of the building and jumped – the helicopter lowered its altitude to compensate for this, and Louis latched onto one of the landing skids. The helicopter rocked slightly from this, but flew steady, and peeled away from the roof of Mercy Hospital.

Three pairs of arms yanked him into the cabin of the helicopter, and the rushing wind stopped when someone closed the doors. Louis was only dimly aware that Zoey had her arms around him; barely conscious that she had her head buried into his shoulder and was crying.

"You idiot!" she said through his shirt. "Don't fuck around like that next time!"

"I won't," Louis said, still feeling dazed at his miraculous escape. Finally, he remembered where he was. He sat down on one of the cushioned seats in the helicopter. "Shit…we made it! We really made it this time!"

"Suck on that, zombies!" Francis roared.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see a Huey," Bill said happily. "Just like the glory days."

"Vietnam? Oh forgive me, I figured your first duty station was a trench in Europe somewhere," Francis joked, only to be slapped across the head by Bill. It was several minutes before the initial joy of being rescued died down.

"Pilot, where are we going now?" asked Bill.

"We're heading to the city of Newburg," replied the pilot. "The military is running flights out of Metro International Airport to an evacuation zone."

"How many have made it out?" asked Zoey.

"I don't know. But there are always a few groups of survivors. A few make it to Mercy Hospital…but there are always the crazy ones."

"Crazy? How so?"

"They shoot at me when I fly low to reach survivors. And of course, since the survivors are almost always at ground level, I have to fly low to see them and tell them to get to Mercy. Mostly they miss, but I've taken a few small hits. Luckily this chopper is well armored, even for a news chopper." They were flying a couple hundred feet in the air, and the group kept watch on either side of the chopper to search for survivors.

It was Louis who first noticed something was amiss. A puff of smoke from a distant rooftop, accompanied by a glowing white orb that left a smoke trail.

"Uh…I think someone just fired a missile."

"Fuck, the crazies have missiles now? Fuck my life!" The pilot immediately pulled the helicopter to a higher altitude, but it was too late – the missile easily tracked the helicopter, exploding near the tail rotor. The aircraft shook, but miraculously, despite the warning alarms, it stayed intact. Everyone in the chopper let loose a simultaneously sigh of relief. The pilot swore profusely, but finally spoke.

"Well, it seems this baby's holding together just fine. Fuck, how did they get their hands on missiles?!"

"Probably a Stinger," said Bill. "The Army has those. Why they brought antiaircraft weapons to fight zombies…what were they thinking of fighting, zombie MiGs?"

"Zombie MiGs. Nice," said Zoey. "That would be an awesome movie. Think of it, you have some fighter jet movie and the enemy pilots are zombies!"

"That sounds…like a terrible movie!" Louis said.

"Oh, come on, you ever see a movie that's so bad, it's good?"

"Have you ever seen a movie so bad, it's bad? This _Top Gun Zombie_ would be one of them," Francis jeered. Meanwhile, the beeping alarm from the cockpit grew more insistent. The pilot turned back to the survivors.

"Looks like we'll have to touch down a bit early," he said somberly. "We'll be landing at Riverside. From there we'll have to…oh fuck." There was a rumble through the aircraft as the tail rotor, already damaged from the missile attack, flew off the tail. Without a tail rotor to stabilize the aircraft, the chopper went into an uncontrollable spin.

"Hang on everyone!" the pilot shouted while desperately struggling with the controls. "We're going down hard, so grab onto something and pray!"

That was exactly what each survivor did – grab onto whatever handhold they could find, and pray, as well as curse God for making it so unfair. No god would be so cruel as to force four people to run out of hell and then fall right back into it. Louis watched the ground come closer – from what he could see, they were at the edge of a small town. He wondered if he would die in the crash, or if he would survive the crash and be killed by the zombies. Neither was a pleasant prospect.

"FUCK THIS!" he yelled, and those were the last words that escaped his mouth before the helicopter hit the ground. There were sparks, the sounds of twisting metal and sensations of horrendous pain that lasted only a second.

And then, sweet blissful peace.

_A/N: Death Toll, Dead Air and Blood Harvest to follow, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to figure out a way to work in The Last Stand in there. Do keep checking back._


	13. ALERT: Lardcake is back, needs input

Hello,

Some of you will probably know that I haven't updated the story for nearly three months now. Mainly this is attributed to a new semester at school. I'm in my sophomore year in college, and it's been a crazy time. Living in an apartment (much better than dorms, even if you have to pay rent), receiving monthly DOD stipends at taxpayer's expense, kicking the crap out of college classes, etc. It hasn't been exactly easy, even if I'm doing well.

I recently visited the L4D forums and found that I hadn't been there since mid September. Moreover, I haven't updated the rewrite of the original L4D: Origins since early August. Obviously, a quarter of a year is a long time, and perhaps some of the original readers lost interest in that amount of time.

In other words, you could say that the project was abandoned.

The statement is not entirely untrue – school takes priority, as always (there's more this year than last year), and this November, I'm participating in Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month. Google it. Basically, I'm going to write a 50,000 word novel (more of a novella if it's that many words) in 30 days. This is new IP I'm working on, no more of this noobish fan fiction stuff. I've done Nanowrimo four years in a row, and completed the challenge three times. I intend to do the same thing this year.

Mostly I want to lay the project to rest and move on, and forget about it. I'd like to spend more time playing L4D than writing about it, and with other games coming out, there's just little time to write anymore, especially with school. At the same time, though, I sometimes get that bit of nostalgia when it comes to writing. Part of me would like to revive the project.

So…the question comes down to the community. Do you want me to continue the project? Especially with the new DLC that came out recently, that's an extra chapter of wholly new content I can add – and I've got new ideas for the story that won't be as far fetched and strange as the original iteration of the story. I could very easily squeeze time into my schedule to write, especially since I've finished a long batch of nasty midterms.

Option two: I, ahem, leave the project for dead. What do you think?

Best regards,

Lardcake


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